


The Fortune Teller

by Lady_Layla



Series: Fortune Teller 'Verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aphrodite - Freeform, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Bucky is not happy, Bucky killed Tony's parents, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Darcy Lewis is immortal, Darcy is suspicious of Odin, F/M, Hay-Adams hotel, Mentions of Darcy's past, Mild Angst, More angst, Multi, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Tarot Cards, The end of our parallel ride with canon, This is an accidental, We're waving at canon as we pass it by, WinterShieldShock - Freeform, story time, surprise twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-09-29 21:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 35,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10144955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Layla/pseuds/Lady_Layla
Summary: Darcy laughs and the voices of a thousand lifetimes laugh with her.Darcy Lewis was just trying to live her life in Pre-WWII Brooklyn, but everything changes when Steve Rogers and his best friend James Barnes come looking to have their fortune told.Now she's just trying to live in the present, but ends up with a family that knows her biggest secret





	1. Brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I've had this story kicking around in my head for a few days so I decided to post it.  
> It's un-beta'd so if you see any huge mistakes please let me know and I hope you enjoy it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky visit the Fortune Teller

She’d been born in Mesopotamia (she’s almost positive she wasn’t alive before that) with the simple name of Aea and was considered much less important than her brother Abiditan. Ha. If only her family could see her now, over a millennia later, still alive, youthful, and (mostly) thriving when they’re only a distant memory.

* * *

 Darcy Lewis sits in her apartment in Brooklyn, gently leafing through an old, tattered journal. It contains memories, stories, and thoughts from some of her earliest lives. Lives she can no longer clearly remember.

She’s jerked out of her thoughts when she hears a scuffling outside her door. Heaving herself up with a sigh, she quickly places the journal back in it’s protective casing then, back into the storage box. She removes the gloves she wears when handling her old journals as she creeps over to her front door.

Darcy can hear two voices, lowered to a whisper, arguing about knocking on her door and she smirks to herself.

She decides solve the problem for them and opens the door.

The two young men freeze and look up at her, startled. The bigger one straightens and affixes what she thinks is supposed to be a charming smile to his face.

She waits a beat for the smaller one to straighten as well before she realizes that he’s standing to his full height already.

“Yes?”

“We’re looking for Mrs. Lewis.”

“Who is we?”

“I’m Steve Rogers, miss. This is my friend Bu—James Barnes.”

Stepping aside, she motions them to come in, and shuts the door behind them.

“It’s just Miss Lewis, thanks. I’m not married.”

Steve’s eyes get wide again. “You’re the fortune-teller?”

Now it’s her turn to glare at them and even James shrinks back from the look.

“I’m not a fortune-teller thank you very much! I practice the art of divination.”

She manages to put on an affronted air and tries not to laugh as they look taken aback.

“Er..sorry Ma’am...er miss.”

“Right. Now which of you wants the reading?”

They freeze again trading off panicked looks and she leaves them too it. Heading into her kitchen she grabs an old cookie tin from the top of the refrigerator and she smirks again when she hears them follow her.

“Steve here is the one who heard about ya.”

Steve turns a betrayed look on his friend as Darcy pushes him into one of her kitchen chairs.

“It was Bucky’s idea to come see if you really tell fortunes.” Steve said, crossing his arms and looking mulish, although she’s not entirely sure why he seems to be ready for a fight. He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s used his friend’s nickname this time.

“I don’t tell fortunes, I tell outcomes. The future isn’t set in stone, boys. The littlest thing could change the course of history.”

Steve is giving her an awed look, Bucky however looks skeptical. Something she’s used to seeing.

“Are you,” Steve’s voice is dropped to a whisper, “Are you a witch?”

Darcy laughs and the sound of a thousand voices laugh with her.

She doesn’t answer the question.

Both men now look ready to bolt, but she holds out a well worn deck of cards.

“Shuffle.” She says to Steve, her tone leaving no room for arguments.

“For how long?”

Shrugging she just twists her wrist in a circular motion as he starts to shuffle her cards, the deck looking oddly large in his small hands.

The whole situation must be setting Bucky on edge because he nudges his friend to give her the cards back quickly, his eyes darting to the view he has of her front door.

Darcy accepts the cards back, sucking in a quiet breath as she purposely brushes her fingers with Steve’s and gets a quick glance into his future.

She blinks and flips the first three cards over, facing him.

 

 

Five of Pentacles

Knight of Swords

The Tower.

 

 

All three of them sit and stare at the cards sitting on Darcy’s kitchen table before James breathes out a harsh word. “Well?”

Ignoring him, Darcy gives Steve another long once over, making the poor boy shrink in on himself.

“You’re sick a lot aren’t you.”

James snorts and mutters something about understatements under his breath.

“You’re a fighter too, I see. You don’t like bullies very much, but you also don’t really think about things before you rush headfirst into things.”

Steve is giving her that awed look again, ignoring the slight shoulder shove he gets from his friend.

“You want to fight in the war.”

The blush the colors Steve’s face is the only answer she needs and Darcy takes a moment to study the pair before her. James’s focus is ninety percent on his friend with the other ten divided between her and the front door. His teasing from moments ago has bled away leaving him tense and protective.

Silence now threatens to become overwhelming as she decides what exactly to say, before giving a mental shrug.

“You’re going to get your wish.”

Steve nearly falls out of his chair and James turns a menacing glare on her.

“Really?”

Tapping the Knight of Swords card with a fingernail, Darcy nods.

“It’s not going to happen in the way you’re expecting, but you’ll get your shot to fight.”

“What about this last card?”

“Upheaval, turmoil, a shaking of your foundation. This is going to be the outcome of your fight.”

Flipping over the next card she hums to herself.

The Wheel of Fortune.

Fate seems to have taken an interest in little Steve Rogers, who is trying to contain himself and not bounce out of his chair.

He’s not doing such a great job of it.

Collecting the cards again she sends him a fleeting smile.

“Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for you for now.”

Rejecting the money he tries to give her, she frowns as the two men get up and head towards her front door.

Usually, she doesn’t mind indulging in a few theatrics and her readings are much more in-depth. Something about the future of Steve Rogers is troubling her and she almost couldn’t bare to have him sitting in front of her any longer.

It takes her a second to notice that James Barnes is back and towering over her.

“Why did you tell him that?” He hisses at her, crowding her as she stands, trying to intimidate her.

A thousand lifetimes rear their heads in her eyes as she glares back.

“I do not lie.”

The voice coming out of her mouth is deep and sets the dishes to rattling as Barnes shrinks away from her again.

Taking a deep calming breath and placing the cards back in their tin she turns to consider him again.

Against her better judgment, Darcy reaches out a hand and lets her fingers slide against his.

She recoils violently from him as glimpses of his future play out across her mind.

“Leave,” she gasps. “You need to leave.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice and as she sinks to the floor of her kitchen she can hear Steve’s voice calling his friend from the hallway.

Darcy Lewis cries that night. Cries and rages and tries to make bargains that no beings want accept.

Darcy Lewis curses the one lie she’s told this day, curses that the fate of Steve Rogers and his friend James Barnes seems to already be set in stone and there’s nothing she can do.

* * *

 A long while later she’s planning on going to see a USO tour led by Captain America, but misses her chance. Thinking nothing of it she decides it’s time to leave New York for a while and wonders how the west coast will treat her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a tarot reader so these are my interpretations of the cards pulled for Steve.  
> There's going to be at least one more chapter to this, maybe two. I might make a prequel telling how Darcy became immortal but I haven't decided yet.


	2. Jane (and Thor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief re-cap of Darcy's time with Jane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said to most of you in the comments that the next chapter was going to be a Steve chapter. Except Jane showed up and pushed Steve out of the way and demanded her own chapter, which just means there will be more chapters! So here it is and I hope you enjoy!!

Years after she's left Brooklyn she decides to go back to school. It's been...a long, long time since she's been in any kind of school and she wants to see what it's all about. It might not have been the best idea because only two years in Darcy finds herself in the aftermath of what she’ll come to call “The New Mexico Incident™” sitting on the roof of the makeshift lab. She and Jane are preparing to head back to Culver for a while now that Thor’s gone.

They’re celebrating their last night in the desert by getting shit hammered drunk.

The adrenaline is still running high and Darcy finds her self cackling.

“What’s funny?”

“Oxford was never this exciting!”

Jane sits up and peers over at her friend.

“You’ve been to Oxford?”

Darcy is silent as she realizes what exactly she let slip.

“Also, I’ve been meaning to ask, what did Thor mean when he said you have an ancient aura?”

‘This,’ Darcy thinks to herself, ‘This is probably why I kept the same name longer than I should have.’

She looks at Jane, her best friend, her only real friend in almost 300 years.

“Tomorrow.” She says.

“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, after we check the Pinz for Shield issue bugs.”

Jane agrees.

* * *

 

Darcy isn’t sure what reaction she expected Jane to have, fear maybe, skepticism at best. Jane is a little of the latter and none of the former.

“You’ve really been alive since the beginning of the world?”

“I don’t think I was alive quite that early, the furthest back I can remember and my earliest journals are from right after I left Mesopotamia.”

They’re stopped for the night at a rest stop somewhere in Tennessee and over dinner Jane had finally managed to pester Darcy into telling her story.

If anything Jane seems excited, interested, and a little skeptical, which is a relief to Darcy.

“You kept journals?”

Darcy shoves another helping of noodles into her mouth, nodding.

“Journals that haven’t fallen apart from age?”

“The English were big on preserving books. I used to cart them around, but now all the fragile ones are in my vault.”

“You have a vault?”

She hesitates for the briefest second, but she doubts Jane wants to get to her vault. Besides, she’d been assured the security measures in place could be...deadly if someone attempted to bypass them.

“Yeah. All of my books are there, plus a bunch of jewelry and back up currency.”

“Back-up Cu—?”

“Jane-y my friend. Money is ever changing and I’ve got a much stronger back up.”

Jane still looks confused and Darcy rolls her eyes.

“Gold, Jane. I’ve got a ridiculous amount of gold and silver. Plus a few pieces of valuable art that may or may not be classified as “missing”.

Jane’s gaping makes her smirk, but if she ever needed the assurance that Jane was the person to trust her friends next question was it.

“So, you were really a lady-in-waiting for Queen Elizabeth?”

Darcy laughs. “Yes. Not for long, I tried to blend into the background as much as I could, but I was friends with her mother Anne while she was in France.”

Jane also spends long minutes bemoaning the fact that despite her friends long life, she never made friends with any famous scientists.

“What can I say? I guess I’ve always been a soft sciences person at heart.

They go to sleep soon after and Darcy makes a note in her journal that if they ever get the Rainbow bridge working on their end, she’s going to steal one of those golden apples for Jane. If Thor doesn’t do it first, of course.

A very, very old part of her winces slightly at the thought of stealing from Gods and she quickly pours out the rest of her drink into the small potted plant she got on a whim.

* * *

A year later finds the two women suddenly on the plane to Norway. And she means suddenly very literally. Agent iPod thief had called the day before to tell them about the invitation and that Shield would be paying for their flight and stay at the university in Tromso.

Darcy has her tray table down and her three of her battered old tarot cards sit on top of it.

Seven of Swords

The Moon

The Devil

Darcy looks up at her best friend, her eyes narrowed, and a thousand lifetimes of rage pulsing just beyond the surface.

“We’re being lied to, Jane. Shield is trying to get rid of us for some reason.”

They find out the reason soon enough and it takes Darcy weeks to console her best friend about Thor’s return and second departure from Earth.

It isn’t until they’re finally back in the states, Jane having returned to her position at Culver with Darcy as her full time research assistant now that she’s graduated, that Darcy watches the footage of New York alone. She doesn’t just focus on Thor this time and recognizes one of the jack-booted thugs from New Mexico wearing purple spandex.

There’s a guy wearing a new model of the Captain America costume and something inside of her memory tugs. Small flashes of her old apartment in Brooklyn cross her vision, but then she’s watching a red head kick ass, and finally there’s terrible cell phone footage of Iron Man flying a nuke into space.

Darcy huffs and pushes past the nagging feeling she has.

* * *

Six months later Jane is hesitantly talking about her mother and getting new readings.

Darcy just grins at her friend.

“When do I start packing?

Jane looks so relieved that Darcy is concerned that Jane actually thought she’d refuse to go.

“Well, you’ve lived in England already. I just thought….”

She trails off and Darcy quickly folds her friend into a hug.

“The world’s always changing, Jane. I’m not going to get bored of you that quick. I promise. Plus, there are a few places we can check out...mostly to see if they’re still standing.”

London is quiet for about six months.

The Shit Goes Down™

Again.

The result of this is that Thor is finally back. He gets a through chewing out from Darcy after she expresses sympathies about his brother. Personally, Darcy doesn’t think he’s dead, but she’s not going to get into that with Thor.

Thor informs her that she has an open invitation to visit Asgard given by the Queen herself.

“Huh.”

“Mother thinks she knows how you became immortal.”

“Huh.”

“There seems to have been a bargain made on the verge of death.”

Darcy is quiet for a while before she shrugs. “If there was, I don’t remember it.”

The second result of “The London Incident™” (they can’t ALL be incidents, Darcy!) is that Jane is offered a job working for Stark Industries. The offer is extended to the research assistant and “Point Break”.

A little over two years after being the only applicant to work with Dr. Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis finds herself in some of the nicest digs she’s ever seen.

And she’s lived in a few castles.

Indoor plumbing is a hard thing to beat.

So are TV and the internet.

Sorry Bess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note: Darcy dumping out her drink is a quick pouring of libations ritual in offering to the Gods.  
> I really like Thor's mom soooo she didn't die in this one!  
> The Bess mentioned at the end is Queen Elizabeth.  
> The tarot cards mentioned are ones I associate with people/situations that are dishonest or straight up lying.


	3. Avengers Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Just as a heads up I'm honestly just going to stop declaring how many chapters are going to be in this story because every time I do the number changes.  
> Good news though! There will be two chapters posted today to make up for nothing yesterday. The second chapter will be posted later this evening (EST). Although I will say that if this story ends up being really long I won't be able to keep up with posting every day.  
> That all said, enjoy this un-beta'd chapter!

Working with Jane at Stark/Avengers Tower is Darcy’s favorite job and that’s saying something because she’s had a _lot_ of jobs over the years.

Tony Stark likes to think he makes things harder for her, but really it’s easier to handle him than some of the children she’s met.

You just have to know when to push and when to leave him alone.

It only takes Pepper Potts three weeks to notice that he’s been showing up to board meetings, more or less on time, and actually getting enough sleep.

To be fair, Darcy knows she was out of the country for most of that time, otherwise she’s sure Pepper would have noticed sooner.

It only takes her 24 hours to find out that Darcy’s the one riding herd over the scientists, getting them to eat, sleep, and function like mostly normal people.

Bruce Banner has to be the easiest one, he willingly stops to take breaks, get food, and leave the labs. Probably because he’s worried about the Hulk making an appearance.

After that all bets are off.

Darcy’s spent several lifetimes around Queens and Kings and the like.

Most of them have got nothing on Virginia Goddamn Potts.

She quickly finds herself signing a contract with a salary that puts as much money into her account bi-weekly as she made in close to 300 years in her early life.

The only thing that puts a damper on her mood is Tony, who pouts because she was more in awe of Pepper than she was of him. (Because it's Pepper Fucking Potts! How many times does she need to say that before he understands?)

* * *

 Things have been going well for almost two months when the Accident™ (You can’t give everything an official name and a pretend trademark Darcy! Watch me, Jane.) happens.

It’s not really an accident either. One second she’s walking into the common kitchen to get snacks, the next there’s a guy sprawled on the floor and she’s pretty sure she hit him with her empty travel mug.

When she realizes he’s the Jack-booted thug from New Mexico she thinks she might kick him in the stomach for good measure.

A few minutes later Jane comes rushing in followed by Tony and Thor.

“Darcy are you alright? Jarvis said there was an issue.”

“Is she alright? Why isn’t someone asking if I’m okay? I’m the one who got hit in the face with a coffee mug.”

“WHO SITS ON TOP OF A REFRIGERATOR IN THE DARK?” Darcy yells at him, ignoring Tony’s laughter behind her.

“To be fair...” Clint Barton starts, then trails off.

Darcy eyes him, hands on her hips.

“Well...to be fair I was going to try and get into that vent, but I liked the vantage point from the top of the fridge. Then, I just kind of fell asleep.”

“With your eyes open?!?”

“Hey, I can’t help that! It was part of my training.” He says defensively, finally sitting up and rubbing the lump that’s starting to form around his eyebrow.

“You mean jack-booted thug training?”

“Wait,” Tony says looking between them. “Do you two already know each other?”

“He was there the first time Thor landed. He helped steal my equipment!” Jane pipes up, adding her own glare.

“Requisitioned it! Besides, we brought it back.”

Thor seems to feel a little bad at his teammate’s position, so he leans over to help him up.

“Hawkeye! I’m most joyous that you decided to join us!”

“Wait...wait...the jack-booted thug is the guy in purple spandex?”

“It’s a purple tac suit thank-you very much.” Clint says as he turns around to dig into the freezer, grabbing a pack of veggies to slap on his forehead.

“I doubt that’s going to stop the swelling.”

“Gee. Thanks Doc.”

Darcy and Jane both shrug at him.

“Well that was fun, but I’ve got things to do. C’mon Barton, I’ll drop you off at your room on the way back to the labs.”

Tony leads the archer away and Darcy resumes her snack finding mission.

“You know, I think I’m done in the labs for the night.”

Darcy ends up with whiplash when she jerks her head around to look at Jane.

Jane who is currently sharing a look with her godly boyfriend that makes Darcy glad she has her own rooms across the hall.

She waves the two of them off and heads into the living area to take advantage of the big TV.

* * *

 

Darcy has never really been part of a family. Much less a big one. And no matter what Tony has to say, that’s what she’s determined to turn them into. Maybe in her first life there were brothers and sisters, but these are the people she’s close too.

So, she institutes Family Dinner night and Movie night. It seems like for now the world is still trying to calm down from the invasion of New York.

Which is good because super heroes need a break too.

Tony is in touch with the guy wearing the Captain America costume, who he insists is the real deal. Darcy waves him off when she scoffs to herself, remembering the USO show she ended up missing.

Clint is in touch with the woman he calls Nat. She’s a spy and he says she’ll show up eventually.

Which apparently means right before a movie night.

Pepper and Tony are sharing a love seat with Jane and Thor in the other. Darcy is stretched out on the couch with her feet tucked under Clint’s thigh. Bruce is occupying his favorite arm chair and they’re trying to pick a movie for the night when a red head suddenly appears in the corner of the room.

It takes a few minutes for anyone to notice her, but Clint jumps up to greet her.

He’s guiding her over to the chair when she freezes.
    
    
    «Призрак» 

Darcy looks up at the woman staring at her, mouth open in surprise.

She’s moving almost quicker than Darcy could imagine attempting to draw a gun, but Clint is just a quick in preventing her.

They have a low murmured conversation and it’s been such a long time since Darcy’s spoken Russian that it’s taking it’s time coming back.

“Uh, would anyone like to tell the rest of the class why Itsy Bitsy just tried to shoot the intern?” Tony asks from the couch.

Clint opens his mouth to speak, but Darcy cuts him off.

“Natalia?”

«Почему ты носишь лицо мертвой женщины?»

Darcy feels around her face for a minute, partially to see if she can make this version of her little Natalia smile and partially out of slight hysteria.

“I feel pretty alive.”

«Ты не моя сестра! Дарья мертва»

“Are there any subtitles for those of us who don’t speak Russian?”

Pepper manages to get in a subtle punch to Tony’s arm as the room falls silent.

“Uh. Darcy, I hate to say it but you do look kind of like Natasha’s older sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations via google trasnlate:  
> «Призрак» -Ghost  
> «Почему ты носишь лицо мертвой женщины?»- Why are you wearing a dead woman's face?  
> «Ты не моя сестра! Дарья мертва» You're not my sister. Dar'ya (Daria) is dead


	4. Natalia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again! Here's the ending to the story started in chapter 3. I have backstory and additional notes at the end of this because they're specifics that Nat and Darcy don't know and I couldn't figure out how to include them in the story.  
> Also for those asking I'm @ArtemisGarden on tumblr if you want to drop by!

Tony makes a squawking noise that Pepper is quick to stifle with her hand.

Natasha makes a quick motion with her hand and a small open locket slides across the table and stops close to Darcy.

Darcy doesn’t move, but everyone else gets up and crowds around to look at the little picture inside.

After a moment Jane comes over to sit next to Darcy, wrapping her arms around her friends shoulders.

The room watches as they have an entire conversation in facial ticks and eyebrow movements.

“I thought that was just a spy thing.” Tony mutters under his breath and flinches away from the slap aimed at his head.

“Well. I think the reason I look like Nat’s older sister is because I AM Nat’s older sister.”

The room doesn’t descend into chaos exactly because out of the seven other people in the room Jane and Thor already know her secret.

Natasha is wearing a strained look on her face and Bruce finally speaks up.

“How exactly is that possible?”

“Oh. Uh, I was living in Stalingrad in the end part of the twenties, before I moved to Brooklyn.”

“Darce,” Clint looks confused. “Your Shield file says you were born in Portland and moved to Virginia to go to college. Besides the fact that Natasha is older than you.”

Darcy laughs a little bit, silencing the voices that want to laugh with her.

“Actually I’m older than everyone here except Thor.” She turns to him. “I think...although I could actually have a decade on him?”

He shrugs at her and everyone starts talking at once again.

After a minute Thor holds up his hand and silence falls.

“Lady Darcy is telling the truth. She is immortal.”

Clint’s eyes are practically bugging out of his head.

“How is that possible?” It’s the first time Pepper’s spoken since Natasha showed up.

It’s Darcy’s turn to shrug. “I’m not really sure. Thor said his mom might know more about it, but I don’t remember. My first memories that stuck were of when I moved to Egypt to work as a household servant for the Pharaoh.”

It looks like the room is going to erupt again so Jane stands up.

“I know it’s hard to grasp, but why don’t we all take some time to process and tomorrow come back and discuss?”

Tony’s cry of outrage, “Foster knew?!?” is cut across by Natasha’s cold voice. “No. I want answers. Tonight.”

Jane and Thor look ready to argue the point but Darcy puts a hand on each of them.

“That’s fine. How about we take an hour and then come back?”

She doesn’t really leave any room for arguments as she gets up and leaves the room with Jane and Thor following.

As soon as they’re clear of the hallway Natasha and Clint leave as well leaving Tony, Pepper, and Bruce in the living room.

“Well...that was. Interesting.” Bruce finally says into the silence.

“Not surprising though.”

Both men turn to look at Pepper.

“I mean, we got used to the idea of Thor pretty quickly. He said his people have been to Earth before even if they’re aliens and not gods they’re pretty old.”

“Not immortal though.”

“Darcy might not actually be immortal. She might just have an unnaturally long life, we haven’t asked specifics and if I was in her shoes I doubt I’d spend much time trying to get hurt enough to be close to death.”

Tony and Bruce share a look and Pepper just shakes her head. “Scientists.”

The hour passes quickly with Clint and Natasha returning before Darcy, Thor, and Jane.

When they finally arrive they’ve all changed into sleepwear and Pepper notes that Darcy must’ve let Thor braid her hair.

He’s actually done the same for her before and Pepper was surprised at how soothing it was.

“I think we’ve decided to skip to the relevant part of my life instead of starting from the beginning.” Darcy says as she plops down on the couch with her friends close by.

“I moved to Stalingrad in the mid 20’s. I’d never been to Russia and it was on my list so I figured why not. I’ve always been good at languages so it wasn’t hard, I also lived in a fairly remote area so I didn’t get many questions. I was closing in on a decade when I changed the rules I’d lived by for so long.

“I didn’t keep many friends and no one I could call family, but that changed one day. I was coming home from a market when I saw her.”

Darcy’s looking over at Natasha with a soft look, but the latter’s face is carefully blank and her eyes are on the locket still sitting on the table.

“There was a little girl standing all alone on the street corner. She didn’t seem distressed or lost so I was going to keep going. I ended up standing there for half an hour and when no one came for her I crossed the road and approached her. Asked where her parents were and why she was alone.”

Darcy isn’t sure if Natasha even remembers any of this, she was so young then. Such a little thing with a shock of red hair.

“She didn’t say much, but I wasn’t going to just leave her alone on a corner. So, I brought her home with me. Brought her to a doctor the next day. She was older than I thought and seriously underfed.”

“My parents were poor.”

“Mmm. It was hell getting little Natalia to eat enough. I kept forgetting she wouldn’t ask for more even if she needed it. Only ate what was put in front of her and was suspicious as hell when she got a second helping.”

Clint chuckles a little, but it’s half-hearted at best.

“Scared the hell out of me when she’d been living with me for nine months and finally started talking. I was in the kitchen and didn’t hear her come up behind me and all of a sudden she starts talking about a stray cat she’d seen in the window.”

“You burned your hand.”

Darcy smiles at her.

“I did. After that I couldn’t really get her to stop talking, not that I wanted her too. Then it was closing on a year and a half and I was going to legally adopt her. I’d spent a lot of time trying to find her parents and nothing really turned up.”

Darcy takes a deep breath and suddenly looks on the verge of tears.

“That’s about the age when Natasha started training with the Red Room isn’t it?” Clint asks looking between them.

Natasha is still keeping her face carefully blank though her eyes might be a little shinier and now she’s looking at Darcy, waiting.

“They took her from me!” Darcy growls letting a thousand other lifetimes echo her pain. She ignores the looks of fear and surprise from the others and focuses on Natasha’s face; her flinch of surprise.

“I came home from the market one day and she was gone.”

“They said you left!” Natasha cries out looking angry and heart-broken at the same time. “They said that you’d decided you didn’t want a child anymore and you’d left.”

Darcy makes an aborted move towards the other woman and winces as she recoils.

“They lied to both of us. There were two men waiting when I got home, said they’d found your parents and since I hadn’t adopted you yet they didn’t need my permission to take you away. I was so sad and so, so angry, Natalia. You have to believe me. I didn’t want to give you up and I spent six months looking for you.”

“I came looking for you. I broke out and went home and you weren’t there!”

“I couldn’t stay there, Natalia. Surely you understand that. It hurt too much and I couldn’t stand walking by your empty bedroom every day. I packed up and bought a ticket to New York.”

Natasha suddenly stands and leaves the room. Darcy watches her go, but doesn’t make a move to follow her.

“I know this is a lot to take in. She’ll probably need some time to process. I just can’t help but feel like I gave up too soon.”

“She found the locket after the Red Room though.” Clint says.

“Found?” Pepper asks and Darcy smiles again.

“I stuck it under a loose floorboard in Natalia’s room where she used to hide her candy. It was supposed to be a gift and I couldn’t bare to bring it with me.”

“I was tracking her then, it was the longest she stayed in such an unsecured place.” Clint offers. “I was doing recon after she disappeared and noticed she hadn’t bothered to put the floorboard back in place. It had been fine when I scouted the house earlier in the day.”

Silence falls and after letting it settle for a while Darcy stands. “I’m tired. I think I’m going to head to bed.”

“She’ll come around, Darce.” Clint says as he gets up to hug her before she leaves the room.

“I hope so.”

She leaves the room and shortly after the rest of the group follows, no one offering much more than a goodnight and a wave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm totally mixing Natasha backstory from MCU and comics. In this story Natasha was born in 1929 so she's about 6 when Darcy finds her and takes her in. That would make her almost 8 when the Red Room takes her, still young enough for brainwashing and training. The reason she's on the corner alone is her parents sold her to the Red Room for money and someone was supposed to pick her up, but Darcy finds her first and brings her home. It takes them a while to find her again, because they want their property and future spy damnit.


	5. Avoiding Steve aka NOPE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! I hope you all enjoy this chapter in which Darcy runs away from Steve (literally) all the way to Asgard.  
> Un-Beta'd again.

In several thousand years, Darcy doesn’t think she’s been in less control of her life than she is right now.

It’s been a week since the story-telling night with Natalia, who has started to come around...at the worlds most glacial pace.

It’s _not_ driving Darcy nuts, absolutely not. She’s annoyed that she’s become so in-tune with how fast paced the world has become and she’s lost a little bit (the majority) of her patience.

But, she can do this. She can wait this out.

That’s why she’s looking for Barton. He wanted a tarot reading and while she knew Natalia was her own person...she and Barton were attached.

Darcy pauses wondering if it was too late to have some sort of shovel talk with him; voices coming from the other end of the hallway make her look up.

Tony and Clint are walking in her direction with a third man, a large, blond, non-Thor dude.

He turns in her direction slightly and for a second all Darcy can see is a scared and scared skinny kid super-imposed over this giant.

(Well...super imposed would be a bad way to describe it because Steve in the past only came up to his current self’s pecs.)

“Nope.” She mutters and starts to turn. But, she sees the second he finishes talking and glances over at her.

“JARVIS I need a way outta here, buddy.”

“Your timing is most fortuitous, Miss Lewis. Thor has sent a request to see if you wish to join himself and Dr. Foster on a sudden trip to Asgard.”

Glancing back she could see Steve, and yes now she can't deny he's not a fake, starting to close his mouth.

“Yep. I accept. Let’s go.”

Jarvis switches to the audio on her phone as he directs her in a roundabout way to the helipad. She takes off running, hearing footfalls behind her.

“Mrs. Lewis!! Wait!”

“NOPE! AND IT’S MISS, I WAS NEVER MARRIED.” She screams back over her shoulder as she dashes into an elevator.

“Miss Lewis, might I suggest enacting privacy protocols?”  
Shit. That meant Tony wanted to know what was going on.

“Yes, please. ALL the privacy.”

“Very well.”

The ride up to the helipad is short and she bursts out of the elevator before the doors are fully open.

“I’m here! Let’s get this show on the road.”

Thor and Jane watch her and they both look a bit concerned as she skids to a stop.

“Lady Darcy, you seem distressed. May I ask what it troubling you?”

“Nope, no time for questions now. Let’s hit the road and I’ll explain when we go.”

“Darcy are you in trouble?”

Shit. That’s Jane’s ‘I’m not doing anything until you tell me what I want to know face’.

“NO! I promise. I seriously will explain when we get to Asgard.”

She throws a look over her shoulder; the elevator is on it’s way back up.

“Please.”

Thor and Jane share a look before he nods.

“Very well.”

He turns to the sky, “HEIMDALL!”

It only takes a second before they’re enveloped in a golden light.

The last thing Darcy see’s, as she grips Thor’s arm, is Steve bursting through the stairwell door onto the helipad at the same time the elevator lets Tony and Clint out.

Then, there’s nothing to look at but the swirling colors of the Bifrost and just as suddenly they’re deposited in a large, golden, circular room.

“Can we do that again?” Darcy asks, voice awed.

“I know right?” Jane reaches over to fist bump her friend.

Over Jane’s shoulder Darcy sees a man dressed in all gold standing in front of a giant sword.

“There’s a dick joke in there somewhere, but he’s too impressive for me to think of it.”

Despite the fact that she whispered to Jane she sees the man’s lip twitch upwards just a bit as he steps over and embraces Thor with that handshake they do.

“Heimdall, may I introduce my shield-sister, the Lady Darcy.”

Darcy waves at him, but is distracted by the approach of a group of horses.

“They’re thousands of years ahead of us but still ride horses?” This too is jokingly whispered to Jane who just rolls her eyes and moves back to Thor’s side as the group gets closer.

Darcy recognizes the Warriors Three and Sif. Yes! Sif is her favorite...besides Thor of course. She watches them go through the ritual of practically jumping all over Thor and doing little bows for Jane before they notice her.

“Lady Darcy!” is all the warning she gets as Frandral scoops her up.

There’s an old part of her that wants to screech about the indignity but she’s laughing to hard to care.

Frandral carries her over to the horses and attempts to set her on the one he dismounted from until a hand reaches over to stop him.

Darcy glances back at Sif who’s wearing an expression of suffering with only the twinkle in her eyes to betray her.

“Lady Darcy has her own horse Frandral, you know this. Put her down.”

“You know how to ride, Darce?” Jane questions from her position on Thor's horse.

“Jane. I’ve lived during times where horses were the main mode of transportation. Thank-you.” She adds the last to Sif who gives her a leg up and settles into her saddle, pleased to find it’s English style.

Once they’re ready, Thor starts the group back across the Bifrost towards Asgard.

Darcy can’t stop swiveling her head back and forth trying to take in as much as she can and even though she knows Jane’s been here before she can see her friend doing the same.

Their path takes them directly towards the palace cutting through the city and the Rainbow Bridge turns into a normal road. Darcy can see people gathering around to watch them ride by.

Some wave back to Thor and his friends and a few even throw up a cheer as they catch sight of their prince and his beloved.

“Holy flashblack, Batman.” Darcy mutters to herself. She seems to be in the wrong garb, but this scene, a beloved noble riding through the streets of their city to see and be seen, she’s done this exact thing in several of her lifetimes and it’s so familiar as to be comfortable.

As they enter the palace grounds Thor slows his horse to match the pace Darcy has set and smiles at her.

“We will attend the feast this evening and tomorrow afternoon while my love and I are acquiring the data that she needs the Queen Frigga is expecting you.”

Damn.

Darcy wasn’t hoping to avoid the Queen, not really, but she’s not sure she’s ready to find out about immortality.

She likes to read, she’s fully aware (more so now that she has Frigga’s original message) that average people like her don’t just end up immortal. It’s either a blessing or a curse and she’s not sure she really wants to know which one it is.

Thor’s beaming at her and Jane looks so encouraging that Darcy can’t bring herself to voice the thoughts she’s having.

So she smiles and nods and doesn’t mention her plans to get the Warriors Three to show her where the best place to get afternoon drunk are.

"But," Jane starts, "tomorrow morning you're going to tell us what all the running was about."

Darcy takes in Jane's narrowed eyes and crossed arms that she doesn't bother to uncross as Thor grips her hips and lifts her from the horse.

Dismounting her own horse Darcy sighs. "Yeah, yeah. As long as I get all the food and alcohol tonight."

Thor beams at her again and claps a hand on her shoulder. Darcy's pleased that she and Jane have taught him enough that he doesn't do it a full strength and send her flying.

The party then make their way into the palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can anyone else picture Chris Hemsworth as Thor picking up tiny Natalie Portman as Jane who has her arms cross the entire time? Cause I sure as hell can.
> 
> I know a few people have asked here and on tumblr (ArtemisGarden) about longer chapters, but my thing is I can either post these 1000-1200 word chapters fairly often or I can post long chapters less often, like weekly. I have enough stuff going on in RL that I can't really do both.


	6. Avoiding Frigga

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoomp. Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter! This weekend was spent helping my husband get ready for the field, I had an anxiety attack because I never learned how to live on my own. My first real relationship was really bad so I was dependent on my ex and never developed the skills to live alone so when I have to be alone for a bit I panic.  
> ANYWAY  
> This chapter also fought like hell. For whatever reason it didn't want to be written and I feel like that shows near the end, so I'm sorry if the writing isn't up to par down there.
> 
> Enjoy anyway!

Steve Rogers is annoyed and confused. He knew the minute he saw the dame..girl...woman in the hall it was the Fortune Teller that he and Bucky had gone to see a few weeks before Bucky shipped off and he’d met Dr. Erskine.

He’s positive she was the same woman and besides she’d yelled the same thing to him that she had said that day to him and Bucky. “It’s Miss. I’m not married.”

All he wants is for someone to tell him what the hell is going on and how on earth she looks almost exactly the same.

Tony had started pouting and muttering something about everyone knowing Lewis before him.

Clint had shrugged and told him they’d met in New Mexico when Thor had first showed up.

Natasha…

Well, Steve’s not really sure what’s going on with Natasha, but he’s not going to ask her again. Not after last time.

He sighs and decides to hit the gym. Tony had showed him the entire floor that had been turned into a gym and training room after the press had shown up during Steve’s run through Central Park.

Pepper had sworn to find out who had leaked his return to New York after doing a tour of the country but Steve didn’t really see the need.

He’s here now and technically he doesn’t have to leave the tower if he doesn’t want too.

Which he hasn’t, yet.

He’s enjoying having a space of his own that twice the size of his place in Brooklyn and Pepper is really great about getting him things he needs to catch up.

It was a relief to ditch all of the electronics Shield had given him (plus the tracker on his bike) and get new “Stark approved” ones.

Close to hitting his sixth mile on the treadmill Steve decides to write Peggy a letter and maybe have some flowers delivered to her rooms at the home before he takes the plunge and looks into what happened to the Commandos.

That decided he ups the speed and lets his mind wonder.

* * *

Darcy can feel herself swimming into consciousness and she groans.

“Nooooo.”

She hears an answering groan from somewhere else in the room, but doesn’t bother to look for the source of the noise.

Why?

Why in the hell had she decided to try and match drinks with Asgardians?

What on Earth—Asgard had possessed her to do something so stupid?

She’s not sure she’s ever been this hungover in her life and she’s also pretty sure she can feel every single strand of hair on her head and she wishes they would stop growing.

“Ugh.”

Throat dry and raspy she hisses Jane’s name.

“Ugh.” The sound comes again. “Why does everything exist? It needs to stop.”

Darcy would laugh if she didn’t agree so much.

Everything is just too much.

The sound of the door opening causes her to wince and she finally cracks an eye open to see Thor standing at the foot of the bed smiling.

Wait...if she’s on the bed where’s Jane?

It takes Darcy a full minute to spot her friend buried in a pile of massive blankets sitting on the massive, fluffy rug on the floor.

“I’m too full of hate right now and you’re too happy.” Darcy tells Thor before attempting to shove her head under the pillow.

He stops her with a gentle hand before handing her a small crystal looking vial full of blue liquid. She’s surprised at how quiet he is as he makes his way over to Jane and hands her one as well, motioning both women to drink.

Darcy takes hers like a shot and continues on her mission to shove her head under the pillow.

She’s aware of the pain in her head and nausea receding, but keeps her head buried in case it’s a trick.

A few minutes later Jane climbs onto the big bed and slides under the covers before shoving her feet under Darcy’s stomach.

“I feel better.” Her friend says, but she just grunts.

Thor and his buddies effectively killed her desire to go drinking at any point in the near future which means she’s not going to be able to avoid talking to Frigga.

Crap.

The bed sinks again as Thor sits down and she sighs before withdrawing her head and fumbling around for her glasses.

Once she has them back on she looks at her friends.

“And I thought I’d run out of firsts.” She snarks and Jane laughs.

The door to their room opens again to admit several Einherjar laden down with what Darcy assumes is breakfast...or maybe lunch.

They did end up going to bed around daybreak so she’s not sure what time it is and despite how much she ended up eating last night the food is a welcome sight.

The three of them tuck into the food silently, Jane still pressed up against Darcy’s side as she processes the fact that her hangover isn’t going to creep up and yell Boo at her.

Darcy isn’t sure what she expects of Frigga, honestly she’s been trying not to think about her, but an empty couch suddenly filled with a serene looking older woman isn’t it.

It takes Jane and Thor a minute to realize that Darcy’s staring with her mouth open, before Thor jumps up.

“Mother.”

He picks the woman up in an enthusiastic hug, like he does for Jane, and smiles at her.

Darcy wonders if they’ll notice her slipping out of the room. She’s not sure she’ll ever be ready for this talk the Queen wants to have. What if she bargained away her soul? Or someone else’s soul? If she promised a first born that’s okay, she wasn’t planning on having kids anyway. But what if they force her to have a kid and then give it up?

She doesn’t even notice the others in the room or the fact that she’s fished out her tarot cards and started shuffling them absentmindedly as she panics silently.

“Darcy!”

The sound of her name causes her to jump and look around wildly.

Jane and Thor both look concerned and she guesses that wasn’t the first time her name had been said.

She shoves her cards back into the pocket of the dress like cloak she’d ended up putting on.

“Nope.”

The timing is almost unbelievable- one of the Einherjar pushes open the door just as Darcy takes off and she manages to duck around him and start running.

She has no idea where she’s going at all, but decides stairs might be a good plan. Down is always better than up and she descends a few flights of stairs before running down a long hallway that ends in an open courtyard garden.

She practically falls onto a bench and has to take a few minutes to let her breathing slow down. Running has never been her thing.

When she can finally breathe without wheezing, she finally looks up and realizes she’s sitting in front a stunning fountain that looks like it’s spitting out rainbow colored water.

“It’s nice isn’t it?”

The voice to her left makes Darcy jump again.

“You’re afraid, child? Why?”

Darcy looks at Frigga slightly surprised. “Wouldn’t you be? If you made some sort of bargain you can’t remember?”

Frigga smiles down at her and it’s probably one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen.

“Come child.”

Sighing to herself, Darcy gets up and follows the Queen across the garden and into what is obviously a receiving room; yet another thing Darcy is familiar with.

Only she could try and outrun a Queen and end up in their private garden.

“Before we talk about your bargain, I’d like to tell you how Gods are born.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger! Thankfully I have part of chapter 7 written so I should be able to post again tomorrow *fingers crossed*  
> I'm also going to occasionally post sneak peeks on my tumblr ArtemisGarden. You don't have to follow me if you don't want to. The tag will be #The Fortune Teller Fic so you can search that and find the peeks when they get posted!


	7. Gods and Bargains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The chapter a lot of people have been excited about. I really hope it lives up to expectations! Again not beta'd so if there are any glaring errors please let me know. I'm really hoping this chapter and everything in it makes sense.

Darcy gets comfortable on the couch and declines the offering of food and drink.

She and Frigga have a slight staring contest, the latter’s head tilted and a smile playing across her lips.

Darcy caves, knowing this isn’t something she can win. She shifts position, clearing her throat twice before speaking. “You said you were going to tell me how Gods are born.”

The smile on Frigga’s face grows and she dips her head.

“I did.”

“Uhm okay. So, how are Gods born?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure how they all are actually born, but the Aesir aren’t the only ones who visited Midgard.”

“Wait. You’re telling me that all of the Gods that have been worshiped on Earth are aliens?”

“Aye, something like that. You see we Aesir were born as we were, with all of our powers and abilities. The people of Midgard bestowed upon us the titles of deities and it didn’t have much of an effect upon us. For other races that isn’t always the case.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“There are many beings who derive power from concentrated devotion.”

Darcy blinks and there’s silence for a while as she tries to puzzle Frigga’s words out.

“You’re saying that people turn aliens into Gods by worshiping them?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“And what about when people stop worshiping those Gods?”

“Then, they fade. Return to how they were before they had an almost unending stream of devotion.”

“So, they don’t die?”

“Eventually. Some don’t live as long as we do here on Asgard. Some live shorter lives that end. But, when the worship and devotion stops their powers fade and they become whatever is normal for them.”

“How exactly did all these different beings find out about Earth?”

Frigga shakes her head. “Word travels. Not all of the races benefited the same from the devotion. Some merely lent their names and faces to myths, some were able to learn seidr; what you would call magic. They could make bargains, they could grant wishes, or enable curses.”

“I think I get what you’re saying, but what does this have to do with me?”

“You made a bargain.”

“So I’ve heard.” Darcy says dryly. “But I don’t remember it.”

“So I’ve heard.” Frigga replies. “I’m here to tell you about it. You were sick, dying and you didn’t want to die.”

“Who does?”

Frigga glances at her and Darcy shuts up.

“You called out to anyone that could answer and someone answered. Someone you might remember from long ago. Inanna as she was called on Midgard.”

“The Goddess of love, beauty, war, and wisdom.”

“Indeed.”

“Do you know what I offered her for this gift?”

“You offered yourself.”

“My soul?”

Frigga blinks slowly at her.

“You offered all of yourself, as a messenger to replace Ninshubur.”

“So when I die?”

“You won’t. When you are close to death or at the time of your choosing you will be taken from Midgard and made fully immortal.”

“But...I don’t think the Sumerian Gods are still worshiped anymore.”

“Indeed they are not. They have faded back to their lives before becoming Gods. Your bargain with Inanna was traded to someone whose popularity has not faded.”

“Uhm. It wasn’t you was it?”

Frigga laughs and the sound of it makes Darcy crack a smile.

“No, Lady Darcy. It was not I who took over your bargain, but one you might know as Aphrodite.”

Darcy can feel her eyes bug out of her head.

“The Greek Gods are real?”

“I’m sorry,” Frigga frowns in confusion. “Did I not explain the origins of Gods properly?”

“No...no you did I just. I guess I didn’t make the connection.”

Silence descends again and Darcy reclines back into the couch.

“I worked in a temple as a handmaiden for Aphrodite.”

“That’s where she took interest in you.”

“But, if I’m supposed to be taking the place of a messenger wouldn’t I be intruding on Hermes’ and his job? If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s you never piss off a deity.”

Frigga laughs again.

“Your bargain was made to be a personal messenger.”

“Well...that doesn’t sound like a bad gig actually.”

Frigga stands and again offers Darcy something to eat or drink, which she accepts this time.

“I’ll just leave you then.”

When Darcy looks up Frigga is leaving the room and coming in is a woman so striking Darcy drops her gaze as the other woman hands her a drink and takes Frigga’s place on the other couch.

“Darcy Lewis. It is so good to meet you. I’ve come to discuss your bargain.”

“Do I need to start right away?”

Aphrodite laughs and Darcy can’t help but compare her laugh with Frigga’s. Aphrodite’s sounds like tinkling bells, secrets, and sex.

“No child.” There’s a pause and Darcy chances a look up again. “Actually, I think you’re technically older than me in Earth years, but I do believe my planet was born first.”

She looks pleased with herself at this statement.

“As I was saying. No. You’re perfectly within your rights to continue your life on Earth until you choose to do otherwise or the life of your planet ends.”

“What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch. Despite being on your death bed you were very thorough.”

“What happens if you fade back to how you were before?”

“I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon, my devotees are many and widespread. But, on the off chance I will pass your bargain on to one of the Aesir.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed. Now that we’ve discussed the terms, I’ll take my leave.”

The entire conversation takes only minutes and more suddenly than expected, Darcy is left alone.

She’s not sure how long she sits there processing, feeling thankful that her life won’t change now that she knows about the bargain.

Sighing she decides now that's she's faced this issue, albeit unwillingly, it might be time to tackle the problem of the no longer skinny menace back at the Tower.

After a few more minutes Darcy gets up and heads back out into the courtyard wondering if she can find her way back to the room she shares with Jane without help.

They’re due to return to Earth tomorrow, so once Jane and Thor get back from data collecting she'll have her friends help her come up with a plan, figure out how to explain everything to Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope this makes sense! If you have any questions please let me know so I can try to explain it better.


	8. Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with the next chapter! I hope you all enjoy :D

Later that evening, Darcy gives Jane and Thor a brief summary of her conversation with Frigga and Aphrodite. They decide to keep the specifics of her bargain to themselves for now and spend the rest of the evening getting ready to head back to Earth, with Jane filling Darcy in on the data they managed to collect. As they crawl into bed Jane tosses out a few ideas for Darcy to talk to Steve that don't involve running away.

 

Leaving Asgard the next morning is somewhat of a relief and she tells Thor that she’d love to come back now that she doesn’t have to worry about deep dark secrets.

Thor laughs his big laugh and gently claps her on the back.

They head to the throne room to say goodbye and Darcy glares at Odin. She’s still a little mad about him calling Jane a goat, but something about the dude seems off. She wonders if Frigga can tell; the queen keeps a very measured distance between herself and her husband.

Well, that’ll be something to think about, she decides as they mount the horses and head back for the observatory.

“Still searching for the dick joke.” Darcy whispers to Jane, this time doing a victory wiggle when the golden armor dude’s lips twitch.

The ride on the rainbow bridge is just as interesting the second time around and Jane grins, “I’ll probably never get tired of that.”

After taking a minute to get oriented Darcy notices Thor is waving enthusiastically and she turns to see Tony, Clint, and Steve waiting by the elevator doors.

She shrugs at Jane’s concerned look and they walk over. She can see the Captain America’s disappointed-in-you look that Tony’s spoken about and she has to try really hard not to laugh.

“Miss Lewis.” Is the first thing he says when they get in earshot.

“It’s Darcy.”

“Miss Darcy.”

“Just Darcy’s fine, Cap.”

He makes a frustrated noise and shoots a glare over at Clint, who is chuckling to himself.

“I’d really like some answers.” He says, crossing his arms.

“Well I’d really like some coffee.”

“Move.”

Darcy’s surprised at Natalia’s sudden appearance as she shoves Steve out of the way.

They face each other for a minute, unblinking, before Nat barks something at Clint in a language Darcy can’t quite place.

Still laughing Clint saunters over, leans down, and promptly hoists Darcy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Natasha what—?”

Nat glares at Steve and growls something that sounds a little bit like the word mine, before she’s snapping her fingers and Clint follows her into the elevator with Darcy.

When the doors close he lets her down and grins.

“How was space?”

“Uhm. Good? Space like?”

“Maybe next time you can wrangle all of us an invite?”

“Uh...I’ll ask Thor.”

“Cool.”

The doors open and Natalia stalks out towards the rooms she shares with Clint.

“Any reason I’m being kidnapped?”

Clint shrugs as they follow Nat into the living area and he falls over onto the couch, “I think she missed you?”

This is followed by a cup of coffee being thrust into Darcy’s hands and Natalia vanishes.

“Oh. Okay, cool.”

She settles into the open chair and sips at the coffee in silence.

“Steve’s been pretty worked up too.”

“What can I say? I have that effect on people.”

“Are you ever going to talk to him?” Clint asks, finally sitting up straight on the couch.

“I mean I was going to but then...” Darcy trails off waving her hand around.

“Oh.”

“Is Natalia okay?”

Clint winces. “Maybe don’t call her that? It brings up bad memories and she prefers Natasha.”

Darcy hums at him and sips the coffee again as a knock at the doorsounds and Clint gets up to open it.

She’s not at all surprised to see Steve follow Clint back into the living room and waves at him.

“Sorry. I didn’t know Nat was going to do that...or have Clint do that either.”

Steve sighs and slumps down onto the couch where he proceeds to look as pitiful as he can.

“You were better at that back in '39, dude. The whole being small and skinny really lent itself to being super pitiful.”

“I’d just like some answers.”

“I mean...I don’t really know what you’re expecting. I’m immortal, that’s pretty much it. There’s no long complicated story behind anything. I was living in Brooklyn, I met you and your friend. You got turned into Captain America, I moved to L.A., and we’re both still alive when we shouldn’t be.”

Jazz hands make things better right? She does them anyway and watches the emotions flit across his face.

“We need to talk him into a game of poker.” Clint whispers into her ear and Darcy smirks.

“How exactly are you immortal?”

“You made a bargain with the god called Science. I made a bargain with an actual God...dess.”

His face contorts slightly, “No offense ma’am. But there’s only one God.”

Darcy cackles. “You Catholics and your guilt. Sweetie, I’ve been alive longer than most of your God’s followers and believers. I wasn’t in Egypt anymore when Moses led the Jews out, but I heard all about it. I might have even made a pilgrimage to see that child of His speak.”

“You...you’ve met Jesus?”

“No. I heard the man speak once a long time ago. The line to meet him was longer than some of the concerts I’ve been to and if I don’t have the patience now I certainly didn’t then.”

Clint’s quiet snorts have turned into full blown laughter and Steve turns wounded eyes on him. Darcy considers telling him about how Gods are just aliens, but decides that might make things worse. Besides, she’s never met the Abrahamic God, he could be the one that’s an actual God and not an alien. But, mostly she doesn’t want to hurt anymore of poor Steve’s feelings.

The Catholic Guilt™ is strong with this one.

Ha...Star Wars joke...hmmm it’s been a while since she’s watched Star Wars, she wonders if she can drum up the excitement for a movie marathon. Maybe Thor can finally get Jane to watch it and see how much she really looks like Queen Amidala.

A nudge in her side snaps her out of her musings and she looks up at Steve again.

“Look, why don’t you take some time to process everything? I’ve got to go check the labs anyway and make sure nothing is in explosion territory.”

Darcy pats Clint’s head as she heads out and pretends not to notice her red-haired shadow as she heads down to the labs, deciding to take the stairs instead of the elevator so Natasha doesn’t loose her line of sight.

Sometimes, Darcy wonders if it would have just been easier to continue living her life in the shadows instead of shacking up with superheros and alien Gods.

Too little, too late she guesses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also just a note, as a former Catholic and current Pagan I'm trying my best to be respectful of religions. That's the reason I capitalize all Gods and their names/pronouns etc. Also, remember this is a work of FICTION so...yeah. I've gotten two angry Catholic anons in my inbox on tumblr because of this story. I've been a pagan/practicing witch/tarot reader since I was 14. I literally don't care if you think I'm going to hell, I've heard it all before so maybe just keep it to your thoughts if my FANFICTION gets you all bothered.


	9. Relationships

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be my last posting until after we get back from out of town next week! I hope everyone enjoys it. I feel like some of the sentences are really short and choppy so if they come across that way I apologize.

Darcy isn’t surprised in the least when she notices both Steve and Natasha have started finding ways to be around her.

Natasha has even started talking to her again...kind of.

She’s sitting in the living room, trying to glare her tarot cards into submission, and being ignored by Natasha when Steve walks in.

He plops down onto the couch and grins at her.

“Well?”

“They were good.”

Darcy makes a noise at him. “Harry Potter is nothing short of life changing.”

Laughing Steve settles back into the cushions and props his feet on the ottoman.

“I took some online quiz to see what house I’m in. Gryffindor.”

“Slytherin pride yo.” She raises her fist and laughs when Clint walks by, fist bumping her in solidarity.

“Please. Ravenclaw is where it’s at.”

Darcy rolls her eyes at Tony who is nodding together with Jane and Bruce

“Wait a minute! I thought Bruce and Thor were Hufflepuff.”

“We’ve decided that if Pepper gets to be a Slythindor then Bruce here is going to be a Ravenpuff.”

Pepper and Thor are the last to join them and Pepper ends the argument of smashing Hogwarts Houses together by having Jarvis lower the lights and play the first Harry Potter movie.

Darcy can’t help but notice that Steve has spent the last two movie nights moving closer to her on the couch.

Not close enough to touch, yet, but he's been slowly moving ever closer and she’s not sure how she feels about it.

* * *

“Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaane. I’m having a personal life crisis.”

Darcy wonders if it’s possible that she’s feeling Jane roll her eyes, despite the fact that her friend is across the room with her head stuck in her equipment.

“Jaaaaane. Jane. Jane. Jaaaaaaaaaane. Jane. Jane.”

She’s sucking in another lungful of air when Jane jerks her head out of the machine it’s in. “Darcy. I’m working! You should be working.”

“It’s after 5 Jane. That’s when I throw in the towel like a normal person. You should try it sometime.”

Jane huffs at her and Darcy ducks her head to hide her giggles.

“Fine. Give me a half an hour and we’ll pack it up for the night, okay?”

“Yes!”

She watches Jane’s head disappear and sets the chair to spinning around. It takes her a minute to notice that Steve is standing in the doorway.

“What’s up, Steve-O?”

He shuffles awkwardly for a few minutes as Darcy watches him.

“I—uh was wondering if you wanted to grab dinner?”

Shiiiit. She is not ready for this right now, she really likes the newly-large-and-improved-troll Steve Rogers, but dating him... she isn't sure about it.

“Oh yeah, I’m just waiting on Jane to finish up and we’re going to eat. Did you want to come with?”

His face falls a little and Darcy winces on the inside, maybe pretending to be oblivious isn’t the best idea.

“Uhm..maybe another time?”

“That sounds good!” She sends him a bright smile and watches him head off, not as disappointed as he could have been and curses again.

“Darcy.”

Jane is standing right next to her and Darcy smacks her hand across her chest.

“Jesus, Jane! Am I going to have to get you a bell too?”

Ignoring her, Jane folds her arms and looks after Steve.

“What was that?”

“My personal life crisis.”

“Oh...”

“Yeah.”

“Well…I guess I’m done for the night anyways.”

"Good, because I need an actual person to talk too. I'm pretty sure if I ask my tarot cards for any more Steve related advice, they'll tell me to go jump off a cliff or something." Darcy says as they lock up the lab and head out to collect Thor.

Over dinner Darcy confides in Jane and Thor about Steve. How she thinks he might like her and she’s not sure what to do. Her last relationship was almost 500 years ago (there’s a brief interlude where she has to confirm to Jane that she’s had sex recently just not a relationship) and she’s not really sure what to do.

In the end Thor is the one who manages to convince her to give it a shot.

“After all, Steven has outlived most of his companions and even he is not sure of his lifespan.”

Which is a plus.

Probably.

So, she goes out to lunch with Steve a week later and they end up having a pretty great time.

He’s in the middle of reminiscing about how everything used to be so much cheaper on the walk back to the tower and she’s trying not to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I learned a long, long time ago to keep a few things I like because they don’t always stick around.”

“Ah is this the mysterious vault I’ve heard about?”

“That would be it. It only took me three or four times of not being able to find a favorite item anymore to realize I should keep some stuff. Not food or anything like that, but things I think might be valuable or just sentimental to me.”

“Like what?”

Darcy finishes her milkshake, dumps it in a trashcan, and taps a finger on her lips. She pretends not to notice when Steve’s eyes are following the finger.

“I’ve got a small bin full of toys and stuff from the 90s.”

Steve raises an eyebrow and she grins at him. “What? It was a good decade. I’ve got a box with VHS tapes too. That probably won’t last and I’ll probably end up getting rid of them. I usually purge every three decades or so.”

This time she notices the look on his face, but doesn’t ask him about it until they’re back in the tower riding the elevator up to the common room.

“Why the long face?”

“Sometimes it’s crazy to think that you’ve been alive so long. I’m still having such a hard time adjusting and you make it look so easy.”

They move to sit on the big couch and she makes sure to catch his eye before she starts talking again.

“It is easy. For me. I’ve been doing this a long time, Steve. After a while it becomes second nature, especially when you’re living through it. You didn’t get that. You missed so much time while you were frozen and no one expects it to be easy for you to get used to everything... well maybe Tony does, but no one listens to him anyway.”

It gives Darcy a warm feeling in her chest when Steve laughs and drops an arm onto her shoulder.

“Thanks, Darce. Sometimes, I get a little down thinking about the past. It’s still hard to think that I’m the only Commando left and Peggy’s in a home.”

“Speaking of, how come your friend never comes around? Bucky, wasn’t it?” She's desperately hoping her voice doesn't have the strain of panic that her mind does.

Steve's face freezes for a second and then he gives her a mournful look.

“He...he died. Fell off a train.”

As choked up as Steve is, Darcy has to try hard not to sag into the couch in relief. She knows what the official word is on James Barnes- she was in America after the war after all and she even has a few Captain America comics stashed away- that he was KIA. But she also remembers the flashes she got of his future; death is one way to avoid fate and she’s so glad Bucky avoided his.

After all they wouldn’t lie to Captain America about his best friend.

There’s an awkward silence and just as Darcy opens her mouth to apologize for bringing it up Steve blurts, “Shield wants me to move to DC.”

She blinks for a second, a little thrown by the change in conversation.

“Okay?”

“But, I’m not sure if I want to go. I really like spending time with you, Darcy.”

She blinks up at him again. “You know there’s a train right? I can take it up to visit you and there’s also Skype, texting, and even phone calls.” She ends with a dramatic gasp that has Steve rolling his eyes and laughing.

“You’d be willing to do all that?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean the next few weeks are going to be crazy with Tony and Bruce’s new project, but maybe after that all settles down we can go on another date in DC.”

There’s a good chance that Steve’s smile might actually blind her and he’s leaning in for a kiss, a kiss she’s pretty excited for, when suddenly there’s a hand pulling her away and over the back of the couch.

“We’re leaving at 0500, Rogers. You need to be ready.”

Darcy looks at Natasha, standing there with her arms crossed and glowering at the both of them, and can’t decide if she wants to laugh.

“You’re going with Steve to DC?”

“Yes.”

Oh... well. That changes things.

Darcy leans forward and wraps Natasha in a hug, “I’ll miss you too, паучонок.”

“Я уже не маленькая.”

“You’re always going to be my little sister.”

Natasha finally returns the hug and when they move apart Steve is no longer on the couch.

“ _Didn’t want to intrude._ ” His text says later, it’s the last thing she gets from him until he gets to DC because she is not about to get up at five am when she only got herself and Tony out of the labs at three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: Little Spider and I'm not little anymore  
> Also...I do in fact spend time trying to glare my tarot deck into submission. They might be pieces of cardboard, but damn they can be brutal.


	10. Darcy in DC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm back. Sorry for the super long delay with this chapter, I was going to post earlier in the week but my husband got sick with a really bad stomach flu so I've been watching him!  
> Without further ado here's the next chapter!

Talking to Steve is actually easy and fun. Sometimes he’d call her and sometimes she’d get him to actually turn on his laptop so they could Skype.

She was surprised at first with his constant texting, besides when he was in Shield or on missions, but she honestly shouldn't have been.

It just proves her point that no one needs to listen to the ridiculous stuff that comes out of Tony Stark's mouth; Tony who insisted that Steve didn’t just dress like a grandpa but, acted like one where technology was involved.

Steve, it turns out is a huge troll. He might not have the world’s greatest memory, but his is pretty darn close and he only needed to be shown things once and he remembers.

Darcy can’t help but think it's hilarious, especially when he's using the "old man" act against Tony. 

She also thinks it’s pretty funny that Natasha keeps trying to set him up. The TV is on mute and she’s talked Steve into another Skype call so she can watch him gesture animatedly while he’s talking about Natasha ambushing him with a girl from records and how he’d had to explain he was already seeing someone without letting it slip that he’s seeing Natasha’s sister.

Apparently, Nat’s been ignoring all of the texts from Darcy relating to Steve and their relationship.

The relationship is going pretty well for something long distance. It has it's ups and also several downs, which is the case when they Skype again a few nights later.

Steve is melancholy and he keeps telling her about his visit with Peggy, how he hates that she has to be in a home, that he hates this thing- this illness- that makes her forget.

“It’s just so hard. She’s the only person left from my past and half the time she doesn’t know who I am.”

“I understand, Steve.”

The silence on the other end of the phone is ominous and Darcy figures this isn’t the first time someone’s said that too him.

“No,” his voice has taken on a cold edge. “You don’t. No one knows how this feels and I’m tired of people trying to make everything okay.”

Darcy recoils from the laptop and it only takes seconds for her to be flooded with righteous indignation and she leans closer to make sure her scowl is in frame.

“Really? I’m older than you Steve, you think I don’t understand how you’re feeling? Do you ever stop to wonder why I haven’t been in a relationship for over 500 years? Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that I might have lost someone too?”

Her anger vanishes as quickly as it came and she sighs before quickly saying her goodbye and logging off. Right now she’s really not in the mood for his bumbling apologies and she knows he doesn’t mean to stick his foot in his mouth so much, but right now she isn’t in the frame of mind to deal with it. Sometimes she thinks that Steve needs to pull his head out of his ass. His never ending self-pity can be trying to deal with and she understands trauma, loss, and pain, but he tends to forget he's not the only one who's dealt with stuff like that.

Natasha offers to break his leg an hour later, but Darcy figures since it’ll heal quickly there’s just no point.

He texts her later to let her know that he’s going to be on a mission and when he’s hoping to be back.

Laying in bed that night Darcy decides it might be time for her to finally visit Steve in DC. He’d already invited her several times, but she hasn’t been able to bring herself to actually go. Maybe now would be the right time.

* * *

She’s on the train when a text comes in from an unknown number.

‘ _Something is wrong with Shield. Don’t leave the tower_.’

Whoops.

It’s a good thing she had just taken a selfie to send to Steve, she just switches it over and types Surprise before sending it.

If she’d been any slower, Natasha would have already gotten rid of the burner phone.

A few seconds longer her phone rings, displaying the unknown caller ID.

“What’s the story, Morning glory?”

“You have terrible timing.”

“Good to know.”

“Look... I can’t get into details with you right now, but when you get off the train you need to find somewhere to hole up. Steve and I are on the way back from Camp Leigh.”

“Isn’t that where—?”

“Yep.”

“Right, awesome. Can I talk to Steve?”

“No, I’ve got to go. I’ll get in touch later.”

Darcy glares at her phone for a minute and huffs at it, rolling her eyes.

“Awesome, only another hour to go.”

* * *

“Was that Darcy?”

“Yes. Apparently, she decided now would be a good time to visit DC.”

“What? Now?”

Natasha shoots him a glare. “That’s what I said, isn’t it. She’s going to find somewhere to stay.”

“So, what’s our plan?”

Natasha looks at him for a minute and he’s not sure he likes the smile spreading across her face. “Have you talked to your new friend recently?”

* * *

The minute Darcy gets off the train, she gets an odd, unsettling feeling.

Great.

She never could figure out why she gets glimpses of some people’s future and not others, now this.

Maybe, she’s a mutant after all since she doesn’t remember being granted this power with her bargain.

As she makes her way out of the station she shakes away her thoughts and hails a cab directing the driver to the Hay-Adams hotel.

If she’s going to be hiding she might as well do it in style. Besides, she knows there’s nothing interesting in her Shield files other than her contact with Jane and Thor.

Hmmm…

She decides to use one of her fake IDs just in case Hydra decides they want more information about Dr. Foster's research and that her lab assistant is just the person they want to ask, since the good doctor and her beloved are once again off world.

When she finally gets checked-in and settled into her room she flops onto the couch and clicks on the T.V. only to see Steve's face plastered everywhere with newscasters informing the public that Captain America is currently a wanted criminal.

“Damnit.”

She doesn't hear anything from Natasha or Steve for another day and a half. Then, her phone finally rings, but before she can process her relief Steve is cutting her off.

“Bucky—its Bucky.”

He’s gasping and his words are coming out choked.

“Steve, what’s wrong? What about Bucky?”

“He was here. He’s in DC, alive here.”

Darcy’s blood runs cold and Steve’s voice fades away to the background; all she can hear now are the screams, she can smell the fear, and she knows deep, deep down that she’ll never be warm again.

The same things she felt all those years ago in her small Brooklyn apartment.

“Darcy? Are you still there?”

“Yes.. yes I’m here. Sorry, I just don’t understand.”

“Bucky’s been alive this whole time. He’s been brainwashed into acting as an assassin for Hydra, they call him the Winter Soldier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who saw the earlier post and gave me your opinions. This is kind of a mix, Darcy in DC but not super involved with everything.


	11. The hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me! Back again already! I literally got up and popped this chapter out for you guys in an hour. I'm going to read through it, but remember I don't have a beta for this story so if anything is terribly wrong please point it out so I can fix it!

“Don’t break anything, don’t break anything, don’t break anything.” Darcy chants as she makes another pass around the room.

“How could you have known?”

The voice makes Darcy screech and smack her leg into the chair, which in turn sends her tumbling to the floor.

“Damnit.” She huffs and just lays on the floor for a minute taking a deep breath before looking up at the intruder.

There’s a woman with skin the color of shadows sitting cross-legged on the bed.

“Uhm... I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

The woman looks confused and then her face smooths. “My apologies Darcy. I didn’t know you had become attached to my other form.”

“What no...” the voice has finally registered. “I’m sorry... uhm. Do I call you My Lady or just Aphrodite?”

The smile is back although the Goddess is slightly distracted by the gilded mirror hanging over the fireplace.

With a flick of her fingers, her hair hanging loose in braids begins to wind itself in a more elaborate style.

“Lady Aphrodite is acceptable for now. As I was saying, how could you have known?”

She unfolds herself from the bed and walks over to give Darcy a hand up. Jesus. She’s taller than she was on Asgard.

“Uhh known what?”

“Is it not true you were blaming yourself for what happened to James Barnes?”

“Uhh...”

“But how would that have been possible? Fear, the cold, pain, darkness. Those are all things that can happen naturally in a war. I should know, I’ve spent enough time around a War God.”

“Oh... well yeah I guess.”

“So how were you to know that he would be kept alive this whole time?”

“Well if you put it that way, I guess I couldn’t have known.”

There’s silence for a minute before Darcy looks back up at the Goddess.

“Could no one have stopped them?”

For a second Darcy doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone as devastated as Aphrodite looks now.

“No. Sadly there are so many humans and not enough of Us. By the time anyone knew what had happened,well, 'There are no Gods here', is something your friend heard often and Hydra made sure of that.”

Darcy nods to herself, because of course Hydra would know how to do something like that.

By the time she brings herself out of her musing the other woman is gone again and she sighs. Time to order room-service again, stop blaming herself, and hope for the best.

* * *

When will she learn? Hoping for the best is stupid, just like Steve.

Stupid Steve who let himself be pummeled almost half to death by his stupid best friend and now he’s in the stupid hospital.

Several nurses look like they want to stop her trek down the practically empty hallway, but one glare has them recoiling back against the walls.

There are guards posted outside of Steve’s room and she considers taking them on when she feels someone fall into step next to her.

“Steve is an idiot.” Darcy growls.

Natasha hums next to her.

“And you!” Darcy hisses at her sister. “You know I didn’t have enough equipment here to grab all of that information.”

Natasha’s pleased smile slips off quickly at Darcy’s next words, “I had to call Tony.” They stop a few feet away from the door to Steve’s room.

“Did you have to?”

“Of course I did Nat! He’s really upset you guys left him out of all this and you can’t use Pepper’s relapse as an excuse either. The stabilizing experiment went just fine and she’s totally in control now.”

Darcy pushes past the guards, although she know Natasha must have told them to let her in at some point. But she honestly doesn't care, if they'd tried to keep her out she could have at least tried to vent her anger.

“Of course you’re asleep so I can’t yell at your stupid face.”

“Errr.”

The hesitant voice comes from the chair next to the bed and she turns to look at the man occupying it.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Hello?”

“You must be Sam. Steve’s told me about you.”

“Oh has he?”

She slumps into the chair next to him and sighs.

“I guess he hasn’t mentioned me. I’m Darcy.”

Sam looks politely confused as he quickly checks with Natasha to make sure she’s not crazy.

“I’m the fortune-teller.”

Sam’s head whips back around to look at her.

“The one from ye-olde Brooklyn?”

“Yep. How much weird shit are you down for Sammy-boy?”

Scrubbing his face Sam sends Steve another glare and the girl next to him giggles.

“Well. I guess that all depends. I already feel like these two need some serious counseling.”

“Right on.” Darcy claps him on the shoulder. “In that case let’s just say I’ve lived a really long time.”

“You mean like a mutant?”

“Something like that. So, you wanna fill me in on how stupid Steve’s been this time?”

That must be the right thing to say because Sam starts all the way at the beginning. He was just an innocent man taking a run who had no idea that Captain America was a huge troll.

* * *

By the time he’s done, Darcy’s pulled her tarot cards out to shuffle and notices Sam eyeing them.

“Sorry. It’s a nervous habit, if they creep you out or offend whatever religion you are I can put them away.”

“Nah, they just look similar to a set my great-aunt Tia used to have.”

Darcy cuts him a look, but figures she’ll ask about Tia’s last name and if she happened to be in New Orleans in the 70s later.

The man on the bed finally stirs and Darcy stands up to glower at him, the tarot cards dropped onto the little table next to her chair.

“Oh. Hey Darce.”

“Hey Darce? HeY DARCE? THAT’S WHAT YOU COME UP WITH? AFTER ALMOST DYING ON ME THAT IS WHAT YOU DECIDE TO GO WITH?”

Steve winces at the volume of her voice. “But I’m fine. So, there’s no reason to be mad.”

“Steven Grant Rogers, I may not have known her, but I do know your mother taught you some better sense than that.”

She smacks him on the chest and whirls away to stomp out of the room.

Natasha murmurs something to Steve before turning to follow Darcy and they can hear Sam.

“Man. I like her. She’s not afraid to call you on your stupid shit. Can we keep her?”

Steve’s groan follows them down the hall and Darcy smirks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head Gods don't have to keep looking one specific way, they can take on any appearance they want that pleases them. I've been reading a bunch recently on how describing a black character as a food or drink color is offensive so that's why I described Aphrodite as being as dark as the shadows. If that's not a good description either please let me know and I'll change it.  
> Here's a picture of Darcy's hotel room  
> 


	12. Bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I actually wrote this chapter as well as chapter 11 on Saturday and I meant to post this one yesterday, but I didn't even have a chance to go upstairs to my office.  
> Anyhow it's here now and I hope you enjoy this next installment.

Of course the very next day Steve is demanding to leave the hospital intent on ignoring all protests and common sense advice, so Darcy invites them to move their base of operations to her hotel room. Even with all the leaked files, she doesn’t think anyone will be looking for her and she confirms to Natasha that she used a fake name.

Besides, Sam's place is still standing and she's pretty sure he wants to keep it that way.

Natasha arrives easily enough, but it takes Sam a while to shake off the crowd of Captain America fans waiting outside the hospital so that he and Steve can come in undetected.

They’ve only been sitting together for a few minutes when Darcy’s phone rings and she answers it without looking.

“’Ello?”

“Darcy!”

She pulls the phone away from her face to squint at the screen before pulling it back to her ear.

“Clint?”

“Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

“What do you mean? Is something going on at the tower?”

“I’m not at the tower. I was on an undercover mission and SOMEONE DECIDED TO LEAK SHIELD FILES AND BLOW MY COVER!”

She winces at his volume and grins, “I’m sorry, the complaint you’re trying to lodge is not for this department. Please hold while you’re transferred.”

As she pulls the phone away from her face she can hear gun fire and Clint yelling.

“Nat,” she says in a saccharine voice. “Did you happen to forget about anything while you were leaking files?”

The glare she receives is answer enough.

“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Barton. You transfer is complete.”

Natasha’s eyes go wide at the mention of Clint and when Darcy tosses her the phone she snatches it and shuts herself in the bathroom.

“What was all that about?” Sam asks.

“Well either Natasha forgot or she wasn’t told that Clint was on a mission and his cover was blown by the data leak.”

Nat comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later and they quickly discuss options. In the end they decide to send Tony, who’s practically frothing at the mouth to be involved, in his suit to collect Clint and bring him back to the tower where they'll all convene in two days, leaving time for Jane and Thor to get back from Asgard, and they can decide where to go from there.

A few hours later Darcy decides to call it a night and she watches in amusement as Natasha claims the other side of the bed, leaving the couches to the men with a glare.

* * *

The next day, Steve makes several attempts to apologize to Darcy before they become she decides they're too painful to watch, let alone be involved in and she asks Sam to be her escort out of the hotel.

There’s a brief standoff with Natasha, but she eventually lets them leave and Sam follows Darcy to the mall.

“So new friend Same, how much plausible deniability do you like?”

He squints at her as she browses laptops, eventually selecting a decent mid-range brand, and heads towards checkout.

“I guess that would depend on how illegal you’re planning on going.”

“Mildly illegal with a very large side of Captain America is disappointed in you eyes as well as a scowl-y frown and maybe some yelling.”

“Well in that case...I feel like I’m a little too busy keeping watch to really look into what you’re doing.”

“Right on.”

They hit a few more shops, grab a backpack in which the laptop and few changes of clothes are placed, followed by a coffee shop where Darcy insists on paying and pulls out the new laptop to set it up.

At some point as they're walking towards the Smithsonian, Sam notices that Darcy casually grabs a brown paper bag that’s been folded up out of a tree and shoves that into the backpack.

From there he follows her into the museum and the Captain America exhibit, where Darcy cackles at the still naked statue and they duck into the theater showing the TV reels filmed while Steve was at war.

She watches about twenty minutes worth of film before getting restless and telling Sam she’s going to run to the bathroom.

Which is actually the truth, but as she's leaving the bathroom to collect Sam and call her instinct fueled mission a bust, she sees him, Bucky Barnes.

Honestly, she thought she was going to have to involve Natasha and wait in some Hydra safe house and hope that he would come by to clean the place out.

But there, standing in front of the large glass panel showing the face and information of James Bucky Barnes, is the Winter Soldier.

Sure his hair is a little longer and he looks like a homeless dude with a cap crammed on his head, but she sees the small metal glint and heads over.

He can hear her approach and she briefly wonders if the hand that's moved down to the front of his hoodie is on a gun or a knife.

They stand side-by-side for a few seconds looking up at the smiling face of Bucky Barnes.

“I’m not Hydra.” She says and can see him looking at her, getting ready to head out.

Darcy lets the backpack thump to the ground and he tenses further.

“Sorry.” She says as she nudges the bag over in his direction with her foot. “I’m sure you’ve probably raided a few Hydra safe houses. Keep the cash and the weapons but dump the passports and IDs. They’re being tracked, so I got you some new ones and some clothes. I doubt you trust me at all but you can keep the backpack or toss it. There’s a laptop in there with a bunch of my research and information.”

Walking away her hand is on the handle of the theater door when she hears him. “I know you?”

She winks at him over her shoulder as she pulls the door open.

“I’m the fortune teller.”

When she and Sam emerge from the theater a while later the man and the backpack are both gone causing Darcy to grin.

“Do I want to know why all your new stuff is gone?” Sam asks as they head out of the museum.

Darcy shrugs and loops her arm through his. “Just repaying someone a debit, Sam my friend. What are your feelings on lasagna?”

“That no one makes it as good as my mama does.”

Laughing Darcy hails them a cab and directs it back to the hotel.

“Challenge accepted. When we get to the Tower tomorrow I’m going to blow your mind with my food.” 


	13. Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Many apologies for the long wait between the quick postings last weekend and this chapter. This week was actually pretty shite and the weekend was spent with hubs trying to cheer me up. Alas he has to work today so I thought I'd finish up this chapter and post it.  
> It is a little shorter than usual and kind of just a filler chapter so I hope it's not too boring!

Halfway through the trip back to New York, they find out that Tony’s idea of rescuing Clint was to literally swoop down, pick him up, and take off.

They can hear him moaning in the background when Tony calls to let them know they’ve made it back to the Tower and as soon as the call disconnects Darcy starts laughing so hard she goes silent.

Steve looks extremely confused and a little worried.

Natasha’s grip on the steering wheel has tightened and as soon as Darcy’s done laughing at the mental image she’ll comfort her.

This group has more than just guilt for days, she’d said to Sam earlier, they’ve got enough guilt for years.

“So I get to be a superhero and the shrink to superheros. Awesome.”

Darcy likes his sarcasm.

Sam likes Darcy’s everything and if it wasn’t obvious that she and Steve are...something Sam would make a move.

He still can’t seem to figure out how Steve works so well with Natasha, but with Darcy he’s sticking his foot in his mouth every ten minutes. Especially since they’ve apparently been together for a while now.

He whispers this to Darcy when he thinks Steve and Natasha are deep in conversation, but he can see the tips of Steve’s ears redden.

Darcy pulls out a pad of paper and pen and scratches down ‘ _SUPER HEARING_ ’ before handing the pad to Sam who grins at her

_Why do you havta shout at me?_

They spend most of the trip trading the pad back and forth; when Darcy says it reminds her of high school, Sam acts personally offended that she’s immortal and has gone through the American school system on several occasions.

_Why would anyone want to do that to themselves?_

Neither of them notice the looks that are coming from the both occupants of the front seat.

* * *

When they finally arrive at the rechristened Avengers Tower Sam notices that Captain America is no longer in charge.

As soon as Natasha pulls into the underground garage Darcy takes over, ushering everyone out of the car, sorting bags, and herding them into the elevator.

They emerge into a large living room and Darcy has them dump their bags as she heads towards the kitchen. Sam’s attention is torn between watching Darcy and watching everyone else, because indeed it seems like all of the Avenger’s are gathered in the large living room. Natasha makes a beeline for a shorter blonde that Sam assumes must be Clint.

There’s _another_ large blonde guy, but Sam’s watched TV he knows who Thor is, standing next to a petite brunette that must be Darcy’s boss/friend Jane. After a few seconds of small talk Jane leaves Thor’s side to follow Darcy into the kitchen.

Of course Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are just as recognizable as they walk over to greet Steve and Sam with another rumpled looking man following them. Since he’s placed everyone else this must be the Hulk...what’s his name? Tony introduces him as Bruce Banner and Sam smiles.

Now that he’s gotten an eye on everyone his gaze wonders towards the kitchen and he can see Darcy flitting back and forth pausing only to plop a bowl of something and a mug in front of Jane.

Sam notices that Steve keeps getting distracted by Darcy as well and he watches his friend finally give up on all attempts at conversation and head into the kitchen.

Pepper watches Steve go with a little smile that Sam returns once he catches her eye and she moves closer.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Wilson. We really appreciate all the help you gave Steve and Natasha in DC.”

“Well, you can’t find out that Captain America is a huge troll and then not follow him into battle, Ma’am.”

“Please call me Pepper.”

“Sam.”

“Tony still hasn’t caught on yet. He falls for Steve’s old man acts every time.”

Sam laughs and Pepper manages to steer them towards the rest of the group.

About twenty minutes later he is pleased that he only flinches a little bit when the voice comes out of the ceiling.

“Since everyone is in attendance Miss Lewis has served breakfast for lunch in the dining room.”

“We have a dining room?” Tony swivels his head around to look at Pepper who just rolls her eyes at him and leads the group, quietly apologizing to Sam and explaining Jarvis.

Only after all of the food and coffee (or tea) has been consumed does Darcy give everyone leave to grab their bags and disperse to their rooms.

Sam follows Steve to his rooms, which—damn are bigger than Sam’s first apartment and almost as big as the ground floor in his house.

They spend the rest of the afternoon with Steve giving Sam a tour followed by a mandatory movie night.

Steve and Darcy seem to have made up so this seems to quell any current itches Steve might have to go assassin hunting...for now at least.

* * *

 

As he’s laying in Steve’s guest bed later that evening Sam isn’t sure he’ll have much therapy work to do after all.

Sure all of the people in this building probably could benefit from serious shrinkage, but he’s also pretty sure that they’d be far worse off than they are now without one Darcy Lewis.

He’s not sure how she manages to do it, but they all seem more relaxed than they were even this morning.

As he drifts off Sam thinks he’ll have to have a chat with Darcy, see if they can work something out. He’s not sure any of them would tolerate sitting down and opening up to a stranger, but maybe he and Darcy could work around it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Happy Easter for those who celebrate and I hope today is a good 6th day of Passover for those who celebrate that. Otherwise enjoy your Sunday <3  
> Reminder I'm ArtemisGarden on tumblr if you'd like to stop by and visit!


	14. Things get Tense

The calm lasts longer than Darcy thought it would to be honest. They make it an entire week before Steve’s panties start to get into a twist as he's telling Sam a few stories from the past. Like the first time meeting Darcy, a few Brooklyn neighborhood tales, and then some stuff about the Howling Commandos

It's the look on his face that give him away and when Darcy goes to check on Jane the next morning she notices he’s in Tony’s lab, their heads bent over a tablet.

She ignores him for the rest of the day, hoping the issue might solve itself, but of course it doesn’t.

He brings up going after Bucky at family dinner that night, with intermittent encouragement from Tony, Sam, and surprisingly Natasha. There’s an argument about if they should go back to DC to start searching or if they should just start checking other known Hydra bases.

Finally, Darcy slams her fork down on the table drawing all the attention, even Jane’s head pops up from her notebook.

“Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe he doesn’t want to be found?”

Steve turns on his wounded deer eyes, “Why would you say that Darcy?”

She throws her arms up in the air with a terrible noise to accompany it.

“Because it might actually be fucking true. Jesus fuck.” She turns to Natasha, “You of all people should understand. They took YOU from ME just like they took Bucky from Steve! They had him longer and you know they did worse things to him. When Clint found you did you really want to be found? Or did you wish there had been a third option where you could have just been for a while?”

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Steve start to open his mouth and she points at him. “Don’t start with me Steve. We get it, the love for the ages has a chance to rekindle, but have you ever thought about how selfish you’re being? You’re making a decision to chase someone that maybe doesn’t want to be chased. Have you ever been hunted, Steve? Have you ever run knowing that you’re only a few steps ahead? Maybe you should be caught, maybe you really want to be, but the panic keeps you from thinking clearly and you keep running. Do you really want to hunt Bucky like an animal? Or do you want to give him time, time to come back to himself and to you?”

“I need to help him, Darcy! I’m not going to be hunting him, I’m going to find him and bring him home.”

Darcy looks at him for a long moment in silence before she snorts and stands so quickly her chair topples over. “Says the hunter to the hunted.”

She grabs her plate, walks it to the kitchen, and drops it in the sink. The sound of broken glass follows her as she stalks to the elevator and enters.

Once she’s in her room she asks Jarvis to restrict all access unless it’s an emergency. Then, she proceeds to tell him what an emergency entails so Tony can’t worm his way around protocols...again. Finally, she drops onto the couch and just stares out the window at the New York skyline for a while before pulling her laptop closer and opening it.

Another few hours are spent locked away pouring over all the files on The Winter Soldier, a few not included in the data dump she’d managed to dig up herself, and lets the horror of his existence wash over her.

The pictures, the descriptions of the experiments, everything is just one Godless act after another and it makes her stomach lurch.

Darcy couldn’t stomach setting starving lions loose on people in the Colosseum either and this is far, far worse.

It’s supposed to be pitch black when she finally looks up, but the city refuses to let the darkness take over and Darcy smiles for the first time since early that morning.

After getting the all-clear from Jarvis she opens the door, intending on grabbing a snack, but Sam’s sitting on the floor across from her door. Asleep.

She prods his foot with her own and he jumps, startling awake.

“How long were you planning on camping out here?”

Sam scrubs his hand over his face and stands up smiling at her as he shrugs.

“Till you came out I guess.”

“Oh. Well I’m here now.”

“I can see that.” He gestures for her to continue and follows her when she decides to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

“That was something earlier.”

Darcy snorts at him and he winks.

“You going to shrink me?”

“I can if you want me too, or I can just be a friend and listen.”

She stops and looks up at Sam standing a few steps above her.

“All that stuff I bought, that I put into that backpack, that was all for him. I gave Bucky new passports and IDs so he could leave the country if he needs to or if he just wants to.”

He nods slowly and they continue their way down the stairs.

“Kind of figured something like that had happened. You in contact with him?”

“No. It was actually just pure luck that he was at the museum when we were. I was considering trying to see if there was a Hydra safe-house he hadn’t raided and leaving the bag there if I had too.”

“Mmm. And what about that blow up with Steve?”

Darcy sighs loud and long enough to get Sam to crack a smile.

“I don’t know if this is going to work out.”  
“You think he’s in love with Barnes?”  
“Maybe. It’s just complicated, he can’t seem to get over his issues with me. I’ve seen some of the records and I know that after a while he wasn’t like this with Peggy Carter. He’s always saying something wrong then, apologizing badly and it’s driving me insane.”

“Have you ever thought that he’s intimidated?”

“By me? I guess that’s a possibility. But I think it’s more than that. I think he was so tired of being stuck in the past that he tried to jump on the dating bandwagon too quickly and I was the only option.”

“He does have real feelings for you.”

They emerge from the stairwell and Darcy heads to the kitchen to start making leftover sandwiches.

“I’m sure he does,” she says as she’s pulling things out of the fridge. “But maybe he wasn’t ready for real feelings just yet. You know, we’ve only been on two real dates and the rest was long distance. I feel like he’s built up this kind of person he’s supposed to be and he needs someone to help complete the picture.”

She drops a sandwich onto an extra plate and pushes it towards Sam. They eat quietly for a while until Jane and Thor come wondering in.

Darcy smiles at her friend who steals the last bite of sandwich and bumps her hip.

“You wanna come over tonight?”

“Janey, it’s 3 in the morning, tonight is almost gone.”

Jane shrugs. “We just finished checking on the lab and I was going to bed now anyway. I could use a snuggle-buddy.”

“Isn’t that what he’s for?” Darcy jerks a thumb at Thor, who smiles over his shoulder as he starts assembling his own sandwich.

“Sure, but sometimes I miss having someone smaller to cuddle.”

Sam stands up and sends her a wave. “Don’t think this talk is over,” he says heads back towards his own room.

Darcy looks after him thoughtfully for a while before she beams at Jane and Thor.

“Sure. I could use some cuddles.”


	15. Breakups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! So, I'm sure you've all noticed the chapters haven't been coming as quickly. The reason for that is I've discovered I'm not super awesome at writing serious stuff. I feel like I'm better at crack and humor stuff.  
> However, I'm actually really proud of this chapter. It started off like pulling teeth, but inspiration struck this evening and that's why I'm posting so late.  
> Anyhow I hope you guys enjoy and forgive my probable over use of the comma and poor grammar editing skillz

Darcy and Sam meet up a few days later in an official capacity.

“I shouldn’t be your friend and shrink.” Sam protests.

But, Darcy wears him down eventually because Shield turned out to be Hydra infested and Pepper is doing _another_ thorough check of _every_ SI employee. There’s no one else who has the clearance level to even get to these floors.

She spends half an hour telling Sam her theories about Steve and their relationship. Then, they spend another half an hour discussing ways to broach the subject of therapy with the others before Darcy calls it and invites Sam out for breakfast. It’s been a few weeks since either of them have left the Tower so they decide on breakfast out, but the buzz in the common area stops them.

The TV is split into four different screens all showing different news stations reporting on two bombs that were detonated in “supposedly” empty buildings overnight in the Ukraine.

“It’s him.” Darcy hears Natasha say to Steve as she and Sam get closer.

It makes Darcy grin and when Sam looks over she just shrugs.

“Some people’s version of therapy goes boom.”

The news that his best friend is blowing up buildings and possibly killing Hydra members makes Steve agitated again.

Although if she's honest, Darcy thinks Steve is going to be agitated no matter what and he keeps cutting his eyes towards Tony, who is pacing back and forth while talking on the phone.

She wonders if she’ll ever find a right time to break it off with him or if it’s like a band-aid that she’ll just have to rip off.

Sighing to herself, she nudges Sam and they make their way to the elevator. Neither notice the way Steve tracks them and Natasha watches Steve watching them.

After breakfast she drags herself to the labs. She's been so busy trying to "handle" Steve and make sure Sam is settled that she's really neglected her Scientist Wrangler job and if it wasn't for Jarvis she'd have probably been playing catch up for weeks.

However, in between filing reports and making her rounds with food and coffee she starts digging further into the Winter Soldier files. She finds some that are encrypted and take her an hour to break into.

There's the standard "mission" report, but the attached video footage chills her.

Looks like she's going to have to be alone with Steve anyway.

* * *

 

It's late in the evening when she closes down the labs and goes looking for him. He's alone in the gym which doesn't surprise her one bit. It's where he spends a lot of his time now when he's not going over plans with Tony and trying to avoid having a serious conversation with Sam.

She stands right inside the door and watches Steve attack a punching bag for almost ten minutes before the bag goes flying a few feet away from him.

He notices her then and Darcy notices that he can’t bother to dredge up a smile.

Band-aid then.

“How long have you known?”

Steve looks confused as he walks over to her, ignoring the punching bag on the floor.

“Known what exactly?”

“That Bucky is the one who killed Tony’s parents.”

The sudden tension between them is almost smothering and once again Steve looks defiant, angry, ready to fight. Just like he did so many years ago in her small apartment.

“Well?” She asks when he doesn’t say anything, but he still doesn’t answer just shrugs and turns away from her.

“When were you planning on telling him?”

“Natasha is helping me plan out his most likely route. If we can just get him—“

“Are you serious? You’re big idea is to hunt down a brainwashed assassin as his memories are coming back, as he’s getting revenge, with the help of someone who’s parents he killed?”

Steve turns back and takes the step closer to Darcy, making himself tower over her, trying to intimidate her. Much like his friend had done once.

Bucky had had a better reason though and if she wasn’t cowed then she sure as hell isn't now.

Darcy looks up at Steve and the anger, the pain of a thousand lives blaze in her eyes making him flinch.

“Tell him or I will.” She growls.

“If he finds out he won’t help me get Bucky.”

“I’m over this Steve. Right now I’m over you and your selfish attitude. I’m done with the way you’re dealing with this entire situation. We’re over and I’m telling Tony.”

She turns, doesn’t see the way his face falls, doesn’t see his hand reach out for her arm, all she notices is that Natasha is suddenly there, twisting Steve’s arm towards his chest with a glare on her face.

“Don’t.”

Nat shoves Steve’s arm and he stumbles, mostly in surprise, as the two women leave the gym.

“I need to tell Tony.” Darcy murmurs.

“I know.”

Darcy sighs and leans into Natasha as they walk back to the labs in silence. Jane, for all of her total obliviousness when she’s neck deep in research, notices them right away and starts packing up without a word.

They end up at Natasha’s suite and as Darcy collapses on the couch she can see Clint in the kitchen and hear a blender going.

“Margaritas?” Jane perks up at the sound of the blender and heads into the kitchen to investigate.

Darcy’s not even sure when Natasha text Clint or if he’s been hiding the fact that he’s secretly psychic this whole time.

“If there’s alcohol I want!” She calls from her position, head lolling slightly off the edge of the cushion so she can see the floor of the kitchen.

A few minutes later, Jane is standing in front of her with two glasses and she pulls herself up to a seated position so her friend can sit down...and hand over her drink.

They’re joined by Clint and Natasha, the former glances at Darcy before saying, “What’s this I hear about you and Steve breaking up?”

Darcy groans. “Word travels fast I guess.”

“I mean...Nat was there so I guess it does.”

“You know I feel like it’s not too late to give you a scary shovel talk about dating my little sister.”

“Honestly, I think Coulson’s talk was probably scarier.”

“Ugh. How am I supposed to compete with a dead man?”

“You can’t. So spill.”

“You’re a bigger gossip queen than some of the girls I went to high school with.” Darcy grumbles as she takes a sip of the margarita.

“Yeah, Sam mentioned that you’ve done high school more than once. That a conversation for another day. What about Steve?”

“I just think it’s better right now if we’re not together. I feel like he was feeling pressured to move on, be apart of this century and no one let him grieve. Hell, I don’t think he even let himself grieve. He’s just so convinced that he has to carry the world on his shoulders and never ask for help. To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as selfish.”

Jane blinks at Darcy over her now empty glass. “How is being a superhero selfish exactly?”

“It’s not. Obviously. But, something I’ve learned is that everyone needs to ask for help sometimes. If you don’t ask for help, you can get really beat down, and when you’re at rock bottom you don’t always make good choices. I mean, I’m not saying Steve’s at rock bottom, but he’s still not really letting people in.”

“I feel like we bonded in DC.” Natasha says as she gets up to pour Jane another drink.

“Yeah, he bonded with you and Sam and I really think he was starting to get a little better.”

“But?”

“But Bucky. Then Bucky. Whatever.”

“And now?”

“Now he’s considering not telling Tony that Bucky’s the one Hydra sent to kill his parents. He thinks Tony’s won’t want to help if he knows.”

Clint looks at her for a second, “And you think he will?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been brainwashed before and Tony was kidnapped and tortured in Afghanistan. We’ve all been through some fucked up shit. He’ll probably be mad, but there’s a chance we’ll be able to talk to him and get through. If Steve keeps this from him until after, then it’ll be a hundred times worse.”

“I thought you were going to tell Tony.”

Darcy drains her drink. “I am. Tomorrow. Tonight I need more alcohol and maybe some chocolate. I did just go through a breakup after all.”

Clint snorts at her, collects her drink for a refill, and Darcy scoots to the other edge of the couch to lean against Jane, letting her friend run fingers through her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you want to check it out my tumblr URL is ArtemisGarden. Feel free to send me a message to say hi :)


	16. Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! I present to you another chapter, slightly shorter than previously, but it really didn't want to be drug out.  
> Now all of the serious stuff is mostly over with the next chapter should be quicker for me to get out and will involve a time skip!  
> Also, I'm thinking I might keep this an OT3 pairing, but I might end the fic with just Darcy/Bucky with a hint that Steve will join them later. After he starts working on his issues. What do you guys think?  
> I'm still not sure how many chapters will be left, maybe 3, but I don't want to say for sure because as we remember this fic was originally only supposed to be 3 chapters total.

Darcy wakes up only a little hungover, which is already a better start than she figured she’d wake up with.

Cracking an eye open she sees that still on the couch, her legs tangled together with Clint’s. Natasha is curled up on the chair, already awake and drinking coffee and it takes a few minutes for Darcy to remember that Thor had stopped by to collect Jane sometime earlier in the morning. He’d ended up getting a promise from them to invite him next time they were drinking and she couldn’t say no. 

She did however warn the others against trying to out drink him, remembering her first morning on Asgard. He probably didn't bring that little magic vial with him to Earth since Midgard drinks were so "weak" in comparison.

Darcy looks back over at Natasha, sits up, and makes grabby hands at her coffee.

Nat mutters something under her breath as she gets up to pour Darcy coffee.

Clint makes a muffled snort as Nat passes him with Darcy’s coffee and a minute later he’s rolled himself onto the floor, grabbed the edge of the table to stand up, and zombie shuffles his way into the kitchen.

He passes them a minute later with a huge mug in his hands and heads down the hall, the bathroom door shuts a few seconds later and Darcy laughs.

“He’s such a weirdo.”

“Hmmm.” Natasha hums, having returned to whatever it is she’s reading on her tablet.

Darcy sips her coffee slowly and lets her mind wonder to the talk she’s going to have to have with Tony. She also feels a little bad for how she’s been acting around Steve recently.

Not that she regrets it, but maybe she could have been a little easier on him.

She just finds it so odd that everything he does has started to annoy her recently, she’s never had someone get so deep under her skin before and it’s unsettling.

Of course breaking it off was for the best, but again she wonders if she could have gone about it differently.

Oh well. It’s too late now and maybe she’ll apologize for it later.

* * *

 

It takes her an hour to finally get moving, with a detour to her place for a shower and fresh change of clothes, but she’s finally on the elevator and on the way up to the penthouse assured by Jarvis that Tony and Pepper are in residence.

The doors open, she steps into the huge living room, and has to duck to avoid a wrench flying her way.

“DID EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THIS BUT ME?”

That’s Tony.

Darcy straightens slowly and walks further into the room where she spots Tony pacing back and forth. Pepper is standing with...with Steve?

“Tony, this isn’t some conspiracy. We didn’t know how to tell you and Bucky’s my friend so I figured I needed to be the one to tell you.”

Darcy almost doesn’t stop the snort that comes out of her mouth, but it’s enough of a noise and three heads turn in her direction.

“Steve, I thought you said you’d wait for me to come with you.” Her voice is sugar coated, but the threat is there.

“Who cares if he waited for you? His best friend murdered my parents.”

“Tony!” Pepper’s voice is sharp, but Darcy smiles.

“Yeah. You’re right. James Barnes killed your parents.”

Tony and Steve turn to gape at her for a second, but Darcy pushes on before they could speak.

“I have his file here, Tony. A file you might be interested in reading.” Tony snorts, but Darcy levels him with a glare and he shuts up.

She steps closer and her voice drops, “Do you remember Afghanistan, Tony? I don’t think you can forget it, can you? Now just think about it again, think about how you’d be right now if your plan hadn’t worked. You might be dead. Or worse. Are you thinking about it? Because what happened to James Buchanan Barnes was worse than death and it happened to him for years.”

Tony blinks at her before he turns on his heel and walks out of the room.

Steve starts after him, but Pepper tugs on his shirt sleeve.

“He needs some time.”

“I’m sorry if I was too harsh, Pepper.”

“It’s okay I’ve said worse things to get through to him.”

Darcy gives Pepper a hug and hands over the files she brought up with her before turning and heading back to the elevator.

She doesn’t realize Steve’s behind her until she turns around and the doors close.

It’s a short yet awkward ride and Darcy can’t help but fidget a little as she waits for the elevator to stop.

“Your floor, Miss Lewis.”

“Thanks J-Man. You’re the best.”

“You’re welcome.”

Darcy steps out of the elevator and almost doesn’t look back, but she does and Steve’s looking at her with an unreadable expression as the doors close on him again.

Jane and Thor are waiting for her in her rooms and Darcy smiles as Jane demands a recap.

Thor isn't the least bit surprised that Steve was the one to actually tell Tony, in fact he has a grin on his face.

“What’s the smile for, Big Guy?”

“I had faith that Steven would do the right thing for both of his friends.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow at him, “Hmm well you might have been the only one. It’s over with now though and we need to give Tony some time.”

“Indeed. It seems as if the Man of Iron will have much to think on over the next few days.”

He’s hardly finished speaking when the alarm to Assemble goes off, causing Jane and Darcy to frown.

Thor rises and gives Jane a quick kiss, Darcy gets a hug, before he strides out of the room and leaves them alone.

“To the labs?”

Jane grins at Darcy and nods as she fills Darcy in on the readings that came in while they were with Clint and Natasha.


	17. It happens in Paris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I actually had this chapter done last night, but it was also midnight my time so I didn't want to post this while some people were asleep.  
> Hope you enjoy!

It starts in Paris.

Jane is scheduled to give a lecture and Pepper just so happens to be scheduled to look over the Paris branch of SI so they decide to fly there together. Darcy drinks too much on the Stark Jet and divides her time in Paris between helping Jane and tagging along with Pepper as her assistant.

They've been there almost a week and Darcy decides that it's a nice enough day out that she'll skip taking the car into work and walk instead, stopping at a small cafe along the way for a coffee. She's only been sitting for a few minutes, slowly sipping her coffee and scanning her tablet when the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she feels a chill run down her spine.

Looking up she takes her time slowly scanning the crowd of people around herself and the passer-by on the street before turning her attention back to the tablet. She reassures herself that Pepper is only a few blocks away, Jane is safe sleeping in the hotel, and lets herself be pulled back into the task of checking-in on the Avengers to see how things are going.

They’re doing a press junket on the latest “attack” which turned out to be giant slugs, or something similarly squishy, that had been some kind of experiment gone wrong.

A shadow falls over her table and Darcy looks up at the smiling barista who hands her a package. It’s a breakfast pastry and the barista tells her that it’s already been paid for, but when she turns to point the person out the table in the corner of the cafe with the only view of the door, it's empty.

Huh.

That’s not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to her and as she heads for the SI building she wouldn’t think anymore about it except she still has that itchy feeling that someone’s watching her.

The feeling fades once she’s through security on her way to Pepper’s office, but it hovers at the back of her mind for the rest of the day.

Something similar happens the next day; she and Jane are having a lazy morning when the bell for their room sounds and they discover a full breakfast spread that's already been paid for.

Darcy shoots Pepper a quick thank-you text, but a few minutes and a knock on the door later and Pepper has joined them.

"I was just getting ready to come by and see if you wanted to order anything. I wonder who took care of it already?"

Slightly worrying, but it doesn’t stop the women from enjoying the food as Pepper makes the final arrangements for their return home.

The rest of the day is spent shopping with Tony’s money and surprisingly Darcy doesn’t have any odd feelings the entire time they’re out almost managing to forget about it altogether.

At least until they arrive back at the hotel after a later dinner where she and Jane trail Pepper up to the reception desk to check for any final messages. Pepper receives none, but the woman manning the desk hands over a small plain envelope to Darcy, who looks surprised.

She puts it in her bag, deciding to wait until they're back in the Penthouse to open it in privacy.

Well... attempted privacy at least.

Because when she pulls it back out of her bag Jane and Pepper crowd around her to watch as she opens the envelope simply addressed to D. Lewis Penthouse Suite

 

_To the Fortune Teller,_

_Thank-you._

_JBB_

“Well...damn.”

Darcy looks up at Jane, who doesn’t seem to realize she’s spoken out loud. “You’ve got that right boss lady...first boss lady. Whatever. Wow.”

Pepper calls the front desk to see if anyone saw who dropped the letter off. Reception tells her that it was a regular courier who dropped off several other pieces of mail and no one paid them any special attention.

“Are you going to tell Steve?”

“Should I?”

The other two women can’t really come to an agreement on the subject; Pepper thinks she should tell Steve, but Jane disagrees since it really doesn't have anything to do with him.

Darcy spends some time tossing and turning in her bed, only getting up when Jane's soft snores fill the air. She digs her tarot deck out of her purse and takes it out onto the balcony with her.

“What will happen if I tell Steve about Bucky’s letter?”

_Empress_

_Ace of Wands_

_King of Wands_

Darcy snorts and scowls at the cards a little bit.

“He’ll be so excited he’ll knock me up?”

She’s gathering the cards together for another throw when she gets a chill down her spine.

“Stevie better not be knocking any dames up without a ring first.”

Darcy can’t help the reaction as she jumps and flinches at the man standing in the shadows of the balcony and the smile drops off his face.

“Sorry.” His voice is gruff and no longer playful.

“It’s okay. You can’t expect good reactions when you just pop up like that.”

When he snorts a second later she's relieved.

“You can sit down you know.”

He hesitates for a second before dropping into a chair and Darcy takes a moment to study him.

His hair is neatly tied back, although still under a ballcap, and he’s wearing a long jacket to cover the metal arm.

“I got your note. What do you have to thank me for?”

“From what I hear you’ve been helping to keep Rogers from starting the worlds biggest man hunt for the last year.”

“Oh yeah and where did you hear that?”

“Rogers. Complaining to that Sam guy.”

“Jesus, you were within hearing range and he still couldn’t find you?”

“They found one of the safe houses I had bugged. For what it’s worth, Sam was uncomfortable not telling you that they were looking for me.”

“Steve knows if he told me I’d just tear him a new one..again.”

The smile flashes briefly across his face and for a minute Darcy can't remember how to breathe or what her heartbeat should feel like.

“He still being a stubborn pain in the ass?”

“Do you really have to ask?”

This time he chuckles and Darcy’s hoping that the dim balcony light is enough to cover how her skin must be flushing.

They sit in silence for a while before Bucky speaks again.

“And that bag.”

“Huh?”

“That bag you gave me in the museum. Thanks for that too.”

“Oh. Uh, you’re welcome. Are you planning on coming in from the cold so to speak?”

“Soon, I think. I’ve got a few things to finish up on this side of the world first.”

“Cool..cool.”

She looks down at her hands which have been absentmindedly shuffling her cards for the entire conversation.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure thing.”

“That woman. The redhead….”

“Pepper?”

“No, the uh. The one who fights with Steve. Natalia?”

Darcy sucks in a sharp breath and looks at him. “What about her?”

“I think I new her in the Red Room. I trained her. I think I loved her.”

Her heart plummets at the same time an old protective feeling rears it’s head and she doesn’t quite manage to stop herself from growling at him.

Bucky doesn’t look the least bit surprised though.

“You’re her sister aren’t you?”

“How did you know?

“We were going to get out, run away together and see if we could find out what happened to you. I was waiting for her after a mission, she was supposed to meet me in the house and she never showed up. I found the locket under the floor board and saw the picture.”

“You put it back didn’t you?”

“Yes. I was an hour late returning from the mission and that’s when they realized the programming was starting to fail. They wiped me and put me back on ice, the next time I woke up I didn’t remember her. I shot her.”

“You shot through her from what I heard.”

“Do you know...did they ever find out our plans?”

“Nat doesn’t talk to me about it much and she never mentioned you. If I’m guessing right though, that might be about the time they sprung her graduation on her. She had to kill her last classmate and then there was some kind of procedure.”

Bucky hisses and smacks his (flesh) hand on the table. “I remember the talk about graduation. They would have injected her with something, she won’t be able to have children now.”

The anger flares up again, a thousand lives worth of voices ringing in her head, clamoring for retribution and pain against those who stole her little Natalia from her. It takes Darcy a while to calm down and notice that Bucky's been studying her.

"You're not just a fortune teller are you? There's something about you that I can't figure out." He says.

Darcy shrugs. "I'm not just any one thing. But neither is anyone else in this world."

He doesn't bother commenting on that, instead choosing to stand up and usher her back into the room with promises about coming home soon.

Almost as soon as she shuts the balcony doors and draws the curtain exhaustion takes over and Darcy returns to her bed falling asleep within minutes.


	18. Sneaking...kind of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Apologies for this chapter taking so long to get posted. This past week was another crazy week and every time I tried to sit down and write something came up.  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Darcy finally sees Bucky again three months later when she and Steve are out to Sunday brunch.

Her cold civility towards Steve had finally started to melt and he’d asked her to brunch so they could really talk about what went wrong. He’d said he wanted her to tell him everything and Darcy had dropped the habit of beating around the bush a few hundred years ago.

“Ouch.” He says as Darcy takes a sip of her mimosa.

“I know, I'm sorry. I feel like it’s a little bit my fault too. I honestly didn’t know how to be in a relationship anymore and I didn’t even consider sitting down to talk about our issues.”

They fall into silence and she spots Bucky when she glances out of the window behind Steve. He’s sitting at a cafe table across the street, with a newspaper flipped open in front of him and a cup in his hand.

He smirks at her when she catches his eyes and she tries hard not to smirk back or roll her eyes now that Steve’s looking at her again.

“Darcy, I think you’re right and we both messed up. It never occurred to either of us to just talk. I’ve never really been one to ask for help or talk to anyone, except Buck, and it was hard for me to open up. But,” he hesitates, dropping his eyes back to his empty plate.

“But..” Darcy prompts as she finishes her drink.

“I hope the door isn’t closed forever.”

Steve is giving her some kind of look and damn if it doesn’t turn her stomach the same way Bucky’s laugh did in Paris. He looks so earnest and hopeful, but at the same time there’s something flickering in his eyes that she hasn’t seen in a while.

“Uh..no?” She gulps a little.

“No?”

“The door might be closed, but there’s no lock on it to keep it closed.”

Steve's face lights up, but he gently moves the topic on to mundane subjects and the rest of the meal goes by quickly and with more ease than she'd been expecting.

Of course when they exit the restaurant her eyes flick over to the now empty table across the street and she gives in to the urge to roll them.

They walk back to the Tower continuing to make unimportant smalls talk that's not as uncomfortable as it could be and she feels her phone buzz in her pocket.

‘ _It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that smile. Keep it up, doll_.’

_'He wasn't even facing in your direction! How did you know he was smiling??'_

She doesn't expect a reply and doesn't get one, but it makes her wonder exactly how long Bucky has been following his best friend around and how long it'll take Steve to notice that he's being followed

* * *

 

It only takes Natasha a week and absolutely no one (really only Darcy) is surprised.

Darcy’s getting some work done in the lab while the scientists are asleep, she’s in her “zone” typing up reports and filing them so it takes her some time to realize Natasha sitting across from her at Jane’s desk.

“What’s up, NatNat?”

Darcy has to bite her lip not to grin at the grimace on Natasha’s face at the nickname.

“How long have you known?”

“You’ve gotta be more specific than that. I’m not a super spy remember?”

“How long have you known that Barnes is following Rogers around like a lost puppy?”

Darcy laughs for a good few minutes before she manages to catch her breath and say, “He’s not lost. He just wants to see if Steve notices him.”

Natasha groans and drops her head a little.

“That might be the fourth of never. You’d think for a super soldier he’d be more observant.” Darcy continues.

“He’s not used to stealth. He’s used to being a battering ram and charging first.”

Darcy laughs again at the mental image and twirls her pen around. “When did you see him?”

“Today, he was following Rogers on his run in Central Park.”

“Ha! Now I know why Sam is hiding from Steve, I wouldn’t want to go on that run either.”

Natasha’s eyes are glittering with amusement as she gets up, drops a kiss on Darcy’s head, and walks out, leaving Darcy staring after her.

“Emotionally stunted I swear.”

Clint finds out a week later and he drops down onto Darcy’s couch.

“Did you know that the Winter Soldier is following Steve around New York? He’s had at least a thousand openings. I have no idea why he hasn't taken a shot yet.”

“Ugh, James isn’t trying to kill Steve, Birdbrain. Also you better fix that ceiling tile before you go or I'll have Tony seal them all shut.”

“Oh. Well, in that case Steve’s blind as hell.” Clint replies, totally ignoring the bit about the ceiling.

“Yeah, I’m aware of that.”

She hands Clint a beer and they decide to spend the rest of the night watching crap reality TV.

The next morning as she's leaving to do her rounds in the lab she notices that the tile is mostly back in place but slightly crooked and she rolls her eyes.

After her rounds are done she starts in on some paperwork and watches Tony slowly shuffle his way into Jane's lab and over to her desk.

“What’s the story, morning glory?” She chirps and he winces.

“It’s too early to be that awake, Lewis.”

Darcy shrugs at him and motions to her huge coffee cup waiting for him to take a sip before she motions for him to speak.

“Listen, I just wanted to say… you know, about the thing...with Barnes.”

She waves her hand around in a nonchalant gesture. “Your emotional quota of the day has been mostly met. If Pepper asks I’ll totally tell her you laid down a serious heartfelt speech.”

Tony smirks at her. “Pep wouldn’t believe that even if it came from the most honest person on Earth.”

“Truth. Forgiven and forgotten man. It’s some heavy shit and I’m not even a little bit surprised you were pissed.”

They fist bump and Tony wonders away.

Darcy watches him head across the hall to his own lab where his little bots all surround him, Dum-E has a large stuffed animal in his claw instead of the fire extinguisher for once and she laughs.

“What was all that about?”

Darcy looks over at Jane, who’s sitting up from the couch now that her nap is apparently over.

“It was just Tony trying to be less emotionally stunted.”

“I take it that means your plan with Sam is starting to work?”

“Who knows, Boss-Lady. Superheros are pretty shit at talking things out.”

“Except Thor.”

Darcy gives Jane a look.

“Well, he’s gotten better about it anyway. Hey, has the—“

“The thingamabob has not made the sound.”

The machine in question picks that moment to make the noise and Jane literally jumps up off the couch and all but runs over to it.

Darcy sighs and wonders if Bruce wants some tea with company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thanks to everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments. This is my first fic to hit 1k kudos and that's super exciting for me!! Also, thanks to people who are going to read my other works and leaving kudos there.
> 
> <33


	19. Everyone except Steve?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Another chapter for you all, fresh out of my brainmeat. I feel like now that most of the serious stuff is over and I can shove humor down everyone's throat, the writing is easier.  
> Also! Unrelated side note: I have purple hair and I LOVE it *heart eyes emoji goes here* I'm pretty much telling everyone lol I've never had a non-natural color in my hair and now 90% is purple and it's the best thing! Anyway enjoy the story!

“Lewis, my favorite assistant besides Pepper!”

Darcy looks up from her desk and the stack of paperwork that she’s been glaring at for the last ten minutes.

“What do you want, Tony?”

“Hey now! No need to be a grump.”

“Well, if you’d just sign these damn papers I could be happy.”

“I give you my full permission and support to forge my signature. I’m sure you can manage.”

She gives him a look before shrugging and getting to work signing his name to everything. He’ll learn eventually that he really should read some of this stuff first, probably when when the forged R&D request for a pound of glitter comes in. (She didn’t even want to ask Clint what he wanted it all for.)

Tony claps and rubs his hands together. “Excellent. Now back to my original question.”

Darcy sighs.

“Tony, you didn’t ask a question.”

“Oh right.” He plops down into Jane’s rolling chair and kicks it into a spin. “How long has the Russian Ice Pop been following Capsicle around?”

“What?” Darcy chokes out as she whips her head around to look at Tony. He doesn’t seem to be mad, he’s mostly concentrating on keeping the chair going than what she’s saying.

“I apologize, Miss Lewis. I recognized Sergeant Barnes as he passed a traffic camera that Sir wanted me to monitor.” Jarvis said.

“It’s fine, J-man. Uhm I dunno, I think he’s been following Steve for three weeks now?”

Tony finally allows the chair to come to a stop, his head swaying in what looks like a nod. “Right, right. Why?”

“Oh uh, I think he’s trolling Steve.”

Tony jerks his head in her direction. “Seriously?”

“Yep. Natasha and Clint already know, but Steve is totally oblivious. I think Bucky even followed you guys on that mission last Thursday.”

When Darcy glances back up from the paperwork Tony is grinning in her general direction.

“I think I’m starting to hate Barnes a little less every day,” he says as he stands up and teeters away muttering something about hoping Bucky doesn’t decide to kill them all in their sleep.

Darcy watches him hit the door frame on the way out and shakes her head. It’s almost lunch time anyway, she might as well feed the scientists who are doing actual work. Glancing over she notices Jane sprawled out on the couch and Bruce huddled up in his office chair, both asleep. Well, she gives a mental shrug, more food for her then.

She runs into Sam in the elevator on the way down to the cafe in the lobby and asks him to join her for lunch. He agrees, but seems really subdued until about 20 minutes through their lunch (Darcy’s never been much of a salad girl, but Leann the cook is changing her mind) when he drops his sandwich to gape out the window.

Darcy follows his gaze and sees Bucky across the street. He’s being creepy again, standing menacingly in one spot as people go out of their way to avoid him. Then, he sees Darcy sitting with Sam and he breaks out into that stupid heart-melting grin, waves at her, and vanishes into the crowd.

Darcy rolls her eyes and turns back to her food when she notices Sam staring at her.

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the guy that was following me and Steve on our run this morning. I think he was heckling us from the bushes.”

Darcy, who’s just taken a sip of her coke, snorts, and tries to keep it from coming back out of her mouth.

“Seriously?”

Sam nods. “And now that I’ve gotten a good look at him I’m pretty sure that’s Steve’s long lost assassin pal that tried to kill me last year.”

Crap. She’d forgotten about that, but Sam only looks mildly annoyed and extremely bemused.

“He waved at you. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Sure, but I have to ask. Heckling from the bushes? Really? Steve couldn’t tell it was Bucky’s voice?”

“He was doing it in a heavy Russian accent.”

This time Darcy manages to spit her drink into her napkin as she giggles and Sam shakes his head at her. After starting back in on their food she explains Troll Bucky, who might be her favorite person on Earth right now.

“So...everyone knows except Steve?”

“Pretty much. Thor saw him on your mission last week. He took out a guy who was trying to get to Bruce before you guys had to call the Hulk in.”

Sam is nodding slowly, but after it continues for a full two minutes, Darcy wonders if she should be concerned until Sam breaks out in a full belly laugh. Clutching his stomach and everything. By the time he's finished, Darcy’s already paid the tab altough he beats her to the tip.

“Man, I really think I’m going to like this dude. Provided that he isn’t going to suddenly start picking us off one by one.”

"Dude, you sound like Tony.”

“Do not.”

They bicker their way back up to the Avenger’s floors to find almost everyone gathered for movie night.

“Steve is on the way.” Natasha says from her spot on the love seat.

“Sam knows.” Darcy replies.

Clint claps his hands together, “Alright who had Sam finding out before Steve and who called this week?”

Steve walks in just as money starts to change hands. Sam just shrugs at him so he doesn’t ask, just sits down on his side of the couch and waits for Darcy to join him. She props her feet in his lap as Jarvis dims the lights and starts the movie.

‘ _I wonder if we could convince Tony to give him access to the building’_ She send to Nat and Clint’s group text.

‘ _Yes! Trolling from the Tower!’_

“What’s up?” Steve leans over to whisper.

Darcy backs out of the messages and smiles at him. “Oh you know. Just planning pranks with Clint,” she whispers back.

Steve rolls his eyes, but smiles at her as he leans back and his attention is drawn back to the movie. Her phone buzzes again and she checks the text from another unknown number.

‘ _I can practically feel you thinking about me up in that tower, Princess. Think I’ll be seeing you soon.’_

Darcy squirms a little bit and waves off Steve’s concerned glance.

He goes back to rubbing her feet, she re-reads the text message, and wonders why her cards never told her how doomed she’s going to be with these two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously guys, I really appreciate all your comments and it gives me feels when I see comments and kudos on my other fics! If you're super into TrollBucky may I suggest The Lab Assistant? I know some of you have already read and commented on it, but I loved writing troll bucky and that's probably why I brought him back.


	20. An Interlude in 400 words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friends! You've all really enjoyed Troll Bucky. I am now proud to present to you Troll Steve

Steve Rogers looks at his friends and team-mates assembled around the table and wonders which of them is a traitor.

What lies are hiding behind the laughter and jokes?

He considers each member carefully.

Romanov and Barton are out, obviously. Natasha can’t be trusted and Clint, well Clint can’t take things seriously.

Thor and Foster are also out. Steve really likes Thor, but the man can’t keep a secret to save his life and Foster doesn’t seem like the type to assist him.

This brings him to Lewis. Darcy Lewis is a traitor if he’s ever seen one. With her pretty, smart mouth all painted red. Steve shakes his head to stop those thoughts in their tracks. He can’t afford that kind of distraction right now...but later he has plans for those lips.

Potts and Banner have to be out too. He’s not sure that Pepper would have time to assist him while running SI and Banner usually doesn’t like to get involved in stuff like this. He’s gotta keep that heart-rate down.

That leaves Stark and Wilson.

Stark is mentally vetoed because the chances of him turning are fairly great. Or cheating.

Steve isn’t a fan of cheaters. (A voice in the back of his head that sounds like 1940s Bucky is howling with laughter and flashing images of card games in front of hit eyes.)

* * *

Sam leaves dinner that night grinning and feeling like there’s been another step towards progress. He’s slightly startled when a voice says, “On your left.” when he enters his living room, but suddenly Jarvis is displaying a 3D image of Steve in the Captain America uniform next to Sam’s couch.

“Sam Wilson, you’re the only one that I can trust in this building. My only friend. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to help me with a covert op. This message isn’t going to self destruct because I didn’t want to make that kind of suggestion to Stark. This is your target.”

Sam grins as the 3D image changes to one of James Barnes.

“Do you accept?”

Sam snaps a salute to the returned image of Steve. “I accept.”

“Your message has been relayed, Sir,” Jarvis says. “Captain Rogers requests your presence at a tactical meeting tomorrow at 0900 in his quarters.”

“I’ll be there, Jarvis.”

Sam wonders if he should warn Darcy and decides against it.

This is going to be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-watched The Winter Soldier last night and I totally forgot Troll!Steve was the first scene with the On Your Left bit so I decided that Troll!Bucky is going to remember how big of a Troll Steve can be too.


	21. Excutive Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I'd just like to say a quick thank you for all the well wishes and such that were posted on my last author note. I did read them all, but since I took the chapter down I didn't reply. The trip to see my parents was pretty great, even though my dad had to go out of town for work I ended up spending time with my mom and we had fun.  
> I'm still really struggling with this story for whatever reason, but I finally managed to get this chapter written so I hope you all enjoy!

The first thing Sam says to Steve the next morning is, “How long have you known?”.

Steve just smirks at him.

“The longer people stay in the Tower the more they believe some of the stuff Tony says about me.”

“Uh-huh.”

Steve’s smirk drops away and no matter how often he sees them, Sam doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to Steve’s “wounded puppy eyes”.

“Sam, I’m worried about him.”

“That’s normal. I mean to be honest I’d be worried about you if you weren’t concerned and I had an idea.”

There’s a knock at the door and Sam opens it to reveal Darcy in her usual jeans and what looks like one of Tony’s band shirts. She’s holding a small white towel and wiggling it back and forth.

“Temporary truce?” She says as she enters the room.

“Darcy’s had the most contact with him so I figure she might be able to help you out.”

Darcy drops the hand towel and walks over to give Steve a hug. Sam had called her pretty late last night and in turn she’d called Bucky to let him in on what she and Sam had talked about.

“How is he?”

Darcy shrugs. “I mean saying okay is pretty far from the truth considering everything, but he’s as okay as could be expected. He’s got almost all of his memory back, he has pretty bad nightmares, doesn’t sleep much, and is kind of hating on himself.”

Steve frowns. “It’s not his fault.”

“I think he knows that, but he’s having trouble believing it. He’s trying to handle this the only way he knows how. I’ve tried talking to him about moving in and maybe talking to that shrink Clint went to after Loki, but he says he’s not ready yet.”

“Does he know I know he’s been following me?”

If Darcy’s surprised that he knows she doesn’t show it she just grins at him. “I believe his words were something like ‘the punk’s not as dumb as he wants people to think he is.’”

Steve relaxes a fraction and Darcy tosses him a salute. “Alright gentlemen, this truce is officially over so I’m out.”

She leaves Sam and Steve to their planning and heads out of the Tower to the smaller coffee place around the corner where she sees Bucky waiting for her at one of the outdoor tables.

He hands her a drink as she sits down and props her feet up in his chair getting herself a suggestive look and a smirk.

“How’s the Punk?”

“You know Steve wanted to know the same thing about you.”

Bucky just shrugs, leans back in his seat, and takes a long drink from his cup.

If he notices that Darcy’s eyes are glued to his throat he doesn’t bring it up and after a second she manages to shake her head and turn her gaze to the street in front of them.

* * *

 

Darcy’s only a little surprised to be called into Pepper’s office for a meeting later that afternoon. Meetings are common when Tony is busy doing a lot of Things, staying up late, and something might explode.

What is surprising is everyone else also wonder in to sit around the conference table. Darcy plops down on Pepper’s right side with Tony at her left. Of course Bruce sits next to Tony and usually Jane would sit with Darcy, but Steve gets there first and earns a glare from the small scientist.

Once Natasha and Clint roll in Pepper stands up smiling.

Pepper’s business smile always makes Darcy think of that phrase ‘if sharks could smile’ and even Tony cringes away from it.

“I’ve heard,” Pepper begins. “I’ve heard that there’s been some development with regards to James Barnes. I've also heard that there might be some "friendly competition" going on and I’m here to put a quick stop to it. Don’t you give me that look Steven Rogers.” She adds when she glances over to Steve’s innocent look is already pasted on.

“I’m fully aware that Mr. Barnes has started to follow Steve around the city and that Steve, Sam, and Clint have taken to planning their own retaliation.”

At this Tony gasps and clutches his heart. “You traitor!” He hisses at Clint, who just grins at him.

“I’m putting a stop to all of this now. Unless you’ve all forgotten the Great Lakes incident already, in which case I’d be glad to remind you.”

There’s a chorus of no’s, except from Natasha and Darcy isn’t the least bit surprised that Natasha would stick with Pepper in a situation like this. The last time Nat was involved in a prank war they almost got arrested in Belarus.

Tony continues muttering about plans being ruined and the sweet life of an epic prank war cut short before it even begins it's life. Weirdo.

“Now Mr. Barnes is welcome to move into the tower.” Pepper says, getting louder to cover Tony’s sputtering towards the end of her sentence. She’s looking at both Darcy and Steve.

Darcy glances casually at her phone sitting on the table that's currently connected into a call with the aforementioned Mr. Barnes. He might as well be a part of the chastisment if they all have to get it.

“If he’s not up for that just yet, I’m perfectly willing to find him and comfortable place anywhere he wants. Do we know where he’s currently residing?”

Darcy and Steve both shake their heads, but Darcy mutters, “Probably some shithole.” just loud enough for the phone to pick up on it and she has to fake a cough to cover up the indignant sputtering on the other end.

Pepper looks away briefly to cover her grin while Steve and Natasha give her phone a quick glance. Natasha also gives her a pointed look and a raised eyebrow, but Darcy just grins and shrugs at her.

“Right, well if Mr. Barnes wishes to change his accommodations he may do so. However, this prank war is done and if I so much as hear a whisper of it continuing I'll be very disappointed."

Crap. The I'm-not-angry-with-you-I'm-just-disappointed look/voice combo is a powerful card and there's muttered agreement around the table.

"Alright, now that that's solved you can all return to your afternoons."

Darcy doesn't say anything as she ends the call, but decided to follow Jane down to the labs. If there's not going to be an epic prank war she might as well just get some work stuff done.

She nudges the other woman as they're leaving and points to Tony, who is still sitting at the conference table with Pepper, his pout in place and arms crossed ready to whine about the prank war and complain about Bucky being able to move into the Tower.

They’ll just have to think of something else fun to do.

She wonders if Clint knows of any good bets she can get in on.


	22. The Vault pt.1

_Darcy’s not sure how she ended up in an empty hall in a fancy dress and she’s not sure where she’s going, just that she’s moving towards a door. At least it’s not getting further away as she walks towards it, those dreams always suck.  
_

_When she gets closer she can hear noise behind the door, music and laughter, so she reaches out to push the door open only to be stopped by a metal hand on her arm.  
_

_She lets herself be turned around to see Bucky and Steve standing in front of her wearing tuxes to match her dress and big smiles._

“ _You weren’t going in without us were you, Darce?” Bucky chides as he leans down to press a quick kiss to her lips._

_Steve follows suite with his own kiss and Darcy finds herself replying, “Not at all.”_

_She turns again to face the door and closes her eyes for a second as they push it open together._

* * *

 

Her eyes open darting around her empty bedroom for a minute before she realizes that she’s in bed and it’s still dark outside.

Well then... she’s not going to be sleeping again anytime soon so she stretches and gets out of bed. After making a pot of coffee she grabs a mug, fills it, and heads out of her suite.

“Jarvis what’s going on in the labs?”

“Sir is currently sleeping on the couch in his laboratory. Dr. Banner is asleep in his quarters and Dr. Foster is still in her laboratory working.”

Darcy sighs as she turns towards the elevator and takes a sip of her coffee.

“What exactly is Jane the Brain doing?”

“Dr. Foster is currently muttering angrily at one of her machines and pacing.”

“Of course she is. Take me up please, J-Man.”

“Of course Miss Lewis.”

The ride is quick as always and Darcy steps off glancing quickly into Tony’s workshop as she passes to see the man himself asleep, as promised, and hanging partially off of the couch.

“Jane! It’s two in the morning, time for all good little scientists to go to bed.” Darcy sing-songs the end as she pushes open the doors to Jane’s lab.

Jane’s pouting at her before she even finishes speaking and Darcy struggles not to laugh.

“You know that’s not going to get you anywhere, Boss Lady.”

“But, I slept until 1 today! I’m not tired and I’m making progress.”

“Really? It looks like you’re waiting on that machine to do it’s thing and it’s not going to do it anytime soon.”

Jane glares at the machine again and for a minute Darcy thinks she might kick it.

“Seriously Jane 12 hours is enough for one day. I’m sure you can get a few hours sleep and get back at it after daylight.”

Suddenly Jane slants her eyes at her friend. “You’re dressed for the day and drinking coffee. Why should I go to bed if you’re not going to?”

A short staring contest ensues, but Darcy’s already made her decision, she just wants Jane to sweat it out. After she wins Darcy grins at her friend and produces the other coffee cup from behind her back.

“Come on, Janey. We’re going on an adventure!”

Darcy leads the way back to the elevator and as they head down to the underground garage she asks Jarvis to have a car ready.

To say she’s surprised to see Steve standing at attention in front of one of the town cars is an understatement and it must show on her face because he slides his hand through his hair while ducking his chin.

“Ah, I figured since I was awake still I could give you ladies a ride instead of waking one of the drivers.”

Jane and Darcy exchange a glance, shrugging, and then to Steve’s surprise they pile into the front seat of one of the cars with him.

Darcy gives Jarvis directions and as they head out the car fills with low music and Jarvis’s occasional navigation.

“Where are we going, Darce?” Jane asks as she watches the city pass by the windows.

“If I remember correctly, this wasn’t one of the best neighborhoods.”

Darcy grins at Steve and Jane. “You say that like you left Brooklyn all the time.”

Steve laughs and accepts her secrecy. It’s not like there are many places that could worry him anyway besides it’s probably why he wanted to come, part adventure part bodyguard duty.

They’re only a few minutes out from her destination when she notices the motorcycle that’s been following them since the Tower. At first she wasn’t sure it was tailing them, but they’re heading in a specific direction and there’s not much reason for anyone to be taking a trip here for fun. Especially at two in the morning.

It’s either Hydra or Bucky and from this distance she can’t tell which so she nudges Steve and points it out.

“We’re pretty close so there’s not much point in trying to lose them now.”

She’s not sure Steve agrees, but he doesn’t do anything other than follow Jarvis’s directions until they finally turn into the parking lot of an empty warehouse.

They’re getting out of the car when the motorcycle pulls into the lot and seriously where was Steve hiding that shield?

She’s not tense because of course it’s Bucky and of course he’d pick now to show up and have his big moment with Steve.

Steve goes totally rigid as Bucky parks the bike and takes off his helmet. She knows he doesn’t need one, but unlike Steve he follows the law... well he uses the helmet to hide his face from cameras, but that’s close enough.

“We having a late night party?” He says as he saunters over to them, that stupid smirk pasted on his face.

“Are you tracking my phone again, James?”

He grins and leans over to peck Darcy on the forehead.

“Buck….”

Finally, Bucky turns to face Steve and they stare at each other.

“Listen, guys I’m sorry to ruin this moment and everything, but we should get inside.”

“We’re going in there?” Jane squawks looking at the building that’s practically falling down.

“Yep. If you boys want to stay out here and angst be my guest, but we might be in there a while and once we go in you can’t follow us.”

That gets their attention and both men spend a few seconds looking between Darcy and the building before Bucky scoffs at her.

“Doll, I hate to break it too you, but there’s not much that could stop me from walking right in there.”

Darcy smirks at Bucky and grabs Jane’s hand to tug her friend forward. “You sure about that soldier?”


	23. The Vault pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you enjoy the double chapter post today to make up for my lack of posting recently. I debated about posting this all as one big chapter which is how it got written, but I wanted to keep the chapter length the same. So you get two chapters for the price of one. Or something like that.
> 
> As always please enjoy and if there are any mistakes please feel free to let me know!

They all head over to the warehouse, Steve and Bucky trading whispers behind them, and Darcy pushes open a small side door.

The inside looks just as decrepit as the outside and there is an obvious layer of dust although they can only see about a quarter of the warehouse.

A few feet away from them is a desk manned by an older gentleman with white hair and tanned skin. He looks like he’s napping at his post, but his head tilts up so he can smile at them when he sees Darcy approach.

“Ah, my dear. It has been a while, yes?”

“Francis, it’s good to see you. Yes. It’s been a decade or so I think.”

“Are you here to see your vault?”

“I am.”

“And these people, they’re with you?”

“Yes, I bring them all in and will escort them all out again.”

The old gentleman runs his eyes slowly over all three of Darcy’s friends before finally nodding his head pushing a clipboard forward for Darcy to sign before he waves a hand in the direction of another door marked OFFICE.

She pushes it open, stifling her laughter at the exclamations from her friends.

The hall beyond the wooden door is anything but falling apart, it’s gleaming white tile floors and matching white walls would be hard to look at if the lights weren't so dim. As it is, even with the low lighting everything seems to glow.

The door swings shut behind them and Darcy pauses to point it out to both of the men. It's almost completely disappeared into the wall, leaving behind only a small seem and no handle to speak of.

“You were saying?”

“I gotta admit this is fairly impressive, Doll.”

“Yep. You didn’t even see the snipers out front.”

Bucky stills. “There weren’t any snipers. I checked.”

“Well, you wouldn’t see them unless they wanted you too. I mean I'm actually pretty sure Dean and Sam aren’t human, they’ve been the same guards out front for the last two or three hundred years.”

Choked noises follow this statement and Darcy again smothers her laugh. She seems so normal and it’s so easy for her friends to forget how long she’s lived.

Their footsteps echo as they continue following Darcy down the hallway. There are grey steel doors that break up the continuous white walls every few feet and it’s at one of these that she stops.

The number 21 is marked on the door and Darcy turns to Jane.

“Can I have the key?”

“What key?"

Darcy give Jane's neck a significant look and her friend's eyes widen as she slowly removes a key necklace that Darcy had given her as a gift two Christmases ago before dropping it in Darcy's palm. "You gave _me_ the key to your vault?" Jane's voice is a little wobbly as she speaks and Darcy just smiles.

“Just a key?” Bucky scoffs and she can practically feel Steve roll his eyes, whether it’s at his friend or the "lack" of security she’s not sure.

Sliding the key in the lock she turns it to the right before a small section of the wall slides away and a palm scanner slides out.

“Is that?” Jane points to something etched into the side of the scanner.

“The SI logo? Yeah, I think the owners made a contract with SI a few years ago and had these put in. I’m also not about to validate Tony’s ego by telling him the systems haven’t needed maintenance since installation so hush hush about that one."

“What’s so special about a palm scanner? Someone could fake your hand-print to get in.”

Darcy sighs as she shakes her arms out and rolls her neck, trying to get her body as loose as she can before she sets her hand on the reader.

“These scanners record pressure too. It allows for a few degrees difference to account for aging and other stuff, but if the pressure isn’t right you’re not getting in. Even if the print is right.”

The scanner beeps and then flips over to reveal a standard numerical keypad. Darcy insists on everyone turning around while she enters her pass-code and the whole thing retracts into the wall before the door pops open.

“It’s not the biggest vault in the place, but it’s bigger than standard.” Darcy says as they head in and she shuts the door behind them.

“Shit.”

Darcy watches her friends look around in awe and takes a minute to see the place through new eyes. The front of the room to their right is set up like a library in an English manor home with bookshelves lining most of one wall until they’re replaced around the middle of the massive room with what look like hundreds of safe deposit boxes stored in the wall.

There’s a couch and a few chairs clustered around a table in front of a fire place (it’s new and electric) there's a fluffy rug stretching out underneath all the furniture and Darcy tilts her head trying to remember where she got it.

To their left the wall is dotted with paintings and several dozen free standing shelves with rows and rows of boxes.

“This is...massive.”

“And impressive.”

“Thanks. The couches should be fine to sit on, there’s a controlled HVAC system and a filtration system so nothing should be dusty.”

“Can I look at your books?” Jane asks with wide eyes.

“Go for it, those are all relatively new, if you want anything older there’s a section of those boxes that have proper storage in them with books.”

Darcy leaves her friends to look around and heads over to the storage boxes, wondering along the row until she finds one labeled 1717-1720 and pulls it off the shelf with an oof noise. She takes the box over to a spot where she’s placed a sheepskin rug and can see the whole room from the floor and sits with her prize.

She pops the lid off and slides on the pair of gloves sitting on top before moving the tissue paper to one side. Sitting at the very top of the pile is a small locket and she reaches for it.

Snapping it open Darcy looks at the picture inside; it’s a picture of herself, dressed in the French style of the time smiling, almost laughing, as she stands next to a handsome dark haired man.

She doesn’t even hear Jane until her friend settles on the rug next to her.

“Who’s that?”

Darcy tilts the necklace so that Jane can get a better look as she speaks. “His name was Théodore. We met in 1717 in France and he’s the last man I let myself fall in love with. He died in 1720 two weeks before our wedding.”

Jane makes a soft noise and she wraps both arms around Darcy as her friend sifts through the contents of the box. A scrap of her wedding dress is preserved along with a journal and several pieces of jewelry.

“Gifts from Theo.” Darcy whispers.

After a few minutes of silence Jane looks over at Darcy. “What brought all this on?”

Darcy looks up and Jane’s eyes follow hers to land on the two men standing near the fire place.

Bucky has his metal arm slung over Steve’s shoulder and he’s trying to laugh as quietly as possible as if they're in some kind of museum where they might get in trouble for disturbing the peace.

Judging from Steve’s red face and where they’re standing they must be looking at her porn collection. She giggles at Jane’s face when she hears what those particular books are.

“What? Some of those are seriously ancient and I only have them if I was friends with the artist.”

“So, you’ve got feelings for…?”

“Both of them? I'm not sure but I think so, besides it used to be more common even though not talked about publicly." Darcy murmurs her gaze drifting back up from the contents of the box. 

Jane shakes her head at her friend, sighing, and they lapse into silence again watching the two men standing together and laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering, yes the non-human snipers are Sam and Dean from supernatural. A few weeks ago my husband convinced me to start watching the show from the beginning to see if I could get into it. I actually hated it when I watched single episodes but starting from season 1 changed my mind, I just finished season 11, and am glad they put season 12 up on Friday.


	24. Non-Human Snipers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back again!! I really like when the writing muse is around and I can get more chapters posted for you guys quickly. In this chapter we're FINALLY starting to see hints of OT3 *Cheers* I mean other than the reference Darcy made to poly relationships being more common in the past (Which I'm not sure is 100% historically accurate) I hope you all enjoy!

Eventually Darcy puts the box away so the boys don’t start asking questions she doesn’t really want to answer. She and Jane take a seat on the couch flipping through an old photo album until the two super soldiers decide to meander their way back to the front of the room.

“So, what’s with this place?” James asks as he drops into the chair across from Darcy letting Steve occupy the chair closest to the door.

“Uhm...I keep a lot of my stuff here?”

“I mean how many people like you are wondering around for someone to have come up with the idea for this place?”

“Oh, I have no idea actually. I used to just tote all of my stuff around with me, it’s why moving was such a bitch. Francis, at the front desk, was the one who found me. I’m not in a lot of historical paintings and pictures, but apparently I’m in enough that he figured it out and this place was already here.”

“So there aren’t any immortal being meet-ups that we’ve been missing out on?”

Darcy laughs. “Not that I know of. I don’t know who own the other 20 vaults, but I do know all the ones after 80 belong to regular rich people and some even belong to organizations as opposed to people.”

She doesn’t miss the look Steve and Bucky trade and now that she’s brought it up she wonders fleetingly if Hydra has a vault.

“I doubt we’ll be able to find out. Francis is pretty big about the whole privacy deal.”

Bucky scowls and Darcy shoots him a dark look. “Besides the fact that I’d never, ever speak to you again if you tried to hurt Francis, there’s a lot more protection around this place than you’ve seen. Don’t push your luck.”

At least he has the decency to look abashed and hangs his head, cutting a look at Darcy from behind his hair that sends a jolt down her spine and she turns to look at Jane, who really is the very best of friends.

“Darce, I hate to be such a downer, but I think that coffee has finally worn off and I’m kind of tired. Do you mind if we head back to the Tower now?”

After a quick confirmation glance at the boys Darcy stands up and helps Jane up. “Yeah, it’s almost daylight, way past your bedtime.”

Jane huffs, but doesn’t say anything in response.

They file out of Darcy’s vault, she locks the door, and hands the necklace back to her friend to put back on the chain around her neck. The door to the rest of the warehouse pops open again at their approach and Darcy points out a camera to a very suspicious assassin.

“Francis keeps an eye out.”

They’re passing the desk as she says this and she leans across it to give the man a fist bump.

“Thank-you, Miss Lewis.”

“Any time, Frankie.”

Francis grimaces at the nickname and Darcy grins winningly at him.

“Darcy, leave the poor man alone.” Jane admonishes with a slight twitch of her own lips.

“Yeah alright. Your family still getting the baked goods I send?”

“They are indeed. Margaret keeps a hidden supply in her room, much to her mother and brother’s chagrin.”

“Ha! That’s my girl.”

"Miss Lewis, one more thing. There are certain people and associations that don't keep with our policies, we don't allow those types to rent from us. No matter how persuasive they can be." Francis sends Bucky a knowing look with just a small smile.

"See Francis knows everything and no one got beat up. Win-Win."

They turn and head towards the door, but are intercepted by two figures melting out of the shadows. Literally. Darcy knows that Bucky and Nat can practically live in the shadows, but she thinks the two figures advancing towards them are made out of shadows.

“Well... if it isn’t tall and taller.” She says stepping away from her little group.

The shadows have left them totally now and both resemble well built brunette men, again Darcy has no doubt that they’re not even close to men, even though Dean and Sam have always been friendly she’s still wary around them.

The slightly less tall one, Dean, slings an arm around her shoulders and leans against her.

“Darcy,” his voice is almost a whine. “You don’t come visit enough. We miss you.”

Sam stands next to Dean and rolls his eyes, although he does lean over to give Darcy a hug.

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Bucky and Steve standing stiffly at full height and she bites her tongue to keep from laughing when she realizes Bucky has shrugged out of his jacket so his metal arm is on display.

“I do have a job now guys. It’s legit and everything. Look I even brought one of my bosses.”

She waves an embarrassed Jane forward.

“Jane this is Dean and Sam. Guys this is Dr. Jane Foster, one of my bosses.”

There’s silence for a second and then Sam has Jane’s hand gripped in his. “You’re THE Doctor Foster? I’ve read all of your papers!” He looks a bit like it's Christmas and Jane's not entirely sure what to do so she shakes his hand and smiles a little awkwardly.

“Yes I am and uh...thank you.”

“Listen guys. Jane actually has really important science to do tomorrow so we’ve got to head out, but we can come back soon and chat?”

Sam beams at both of them before heading to the door to hold it open for them

Jane mouths a quick thank- you at Darcy, who hasn’t managed to shake Dean loose.

“Seriously, Jackass, we need to go.”

“Alright, alright.” He grumbles as he give her a last squeeze and with a look over his shoulder drops a kiss on the crown of her head. “Don’t stay away so long next time, okay?”

He’s gone, melted back into the empty space he came from before she can reply and after they all exit she’s sure Sam does the same thing.

“Those the snipers?” Darcy was expecting the question and gruff tone to come from Bucky, but it's Steve who's spoken and he's glaring at the closed door of the warehouse.

“Yeah. Like I said, pretty sure they’re not human. I mean the fact that they’ve been here a few hundred years is the other giveaway.”

They head back over to the parking lot and the vehicles in silence.

“So, you going to come in Bucky?”

Her question breaks the tense mood and for a few minutes Bucky looks considering. “Nah,” he finally says shaking his head. “Maybe soon, but not just yet.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later.”

Darcy's a little shocked when he scoops her up to hug her and presses a hard kiss to the same spot as Dean.

“Sure will, Doll.”

“Right.”

She’s a little dazed as she and Jane cram back into the front seat to wait for Steve to finish his talk with Bucky.

Finally, he gets in and follows the motorcycle out, activating Jarvis as he does, so they can make sure the team hasn’t started to panic. Of course only Natasha has noticed they're not in the Tower and Darcy thanks the universe for small mercies... like Tony Stark sleeping for more than 4 hours in a row.


	25. An Interlude in 530 words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another little snippet. I'm sure these little "Interludes" could go in another series by themselves. If you'd rather me skip posting these to this fic when I think of them, please let me know.  
> This was mostly to include another little bit about how Dean's been annoying Darcy for a while and a look at what she was doing before Steve and Bucky showed up at her door.

“ _Ah, my dear. It has been a while, yes?”_

“ _Francis, it’s good to see you. Yes. It’s been a decade or so I think.”_

* * *

 

**A Decade or so Ago**

**(Actually 7 decades, but who’s counting?)**

 

Darcy Lewis curses whatever fit of nostalgia that drew her to the old warehouse. Daylight is just breaking in the rear-view mirror of the car she’s borrowed from a neighbor, but despite how late...or early it it, she’s here.

So she parks the car, makes her way to the side door, and lets herself in. The man sitting at the desk beams at her and she allows herself a smile.

She can’t not smile at Francis, it’s unthinkable.

They spend a few minutes chatting about how his new wife is doing and as usual Darcy casts a glance around, but doesn’t see any hovering shadows that mark the presence of the two snipers.

As she signs in she almost sighs in relief at their absence until she notices a figure emerge from the shadows and lope in her direction.

“Dean.” She says tightly.

“Darcy! Didn’t think you’d be back again so soon.”

“Yes well...it’s a surprise for all of us I guess."

The tall man (although she’s not convinced he’s human at all) follows her through the door marked OFFICE making inane conversation. Thankfully he doesn’t follow her into her vault to join in her quest for one of her old journals. It takes a while, but she finally finds the box and just lugs the whole thing off the shelf. The only good thing about Dean’s presence waiting out in the hall is that he carries the box out for her as she finishes her quick trip.

Darcy moves the conversation along as he packs the box up for her and she finally pulls the car back onto the road. That’s probably the shortest trip she’s made to her vault, but she can feel the rain coming and she just wants to be back in her apartment.

The trip there and back are the longest parts of this whole adventure and she’s finally glad for it to be over when she lugs the box up the steps to her apartment, making sure to slide the car keys under the door of her neighbor’s place.

She makes a pot of tea then settles in to unpack the box, putting on a pair of gloves before fishing the worn journal out and setting the box on the floor.

* * *

_Darcy Lewis sits in her apartment in Brooklyn, gently leafing through an old, tattered journal. It contains memories, stories, and thoughts from some of her earliest lives. Lives she can no longer clearly remember._

_She’s jerked out of her thoughts when she hears a scuffling outside her door. Heaving herself up with a sigh, she quickly places the journal back in it’s protective casing then, back into the storage box. She removes the gloves she wears when handling her old journals as she creeps over to her front door._

_Darcy can hear two voices, lowered to a whisper, arguing about knocking on her door and she smirks to herself._

_She decides solve the problem for them and opens the door._


	26. Missions gone Awry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More relationship progress!

It’s two weeks after their trip to the vault that Darcy notices Steve acting weird. When she stops to think about it she realizes that he’s actually been acting kind of weird the last week, she’d just been too busy to notice what was going on.

He’s been mopey and forlorn and as she waits for a thirty-eight page report to print, she props her head on her fist trying to puzzle out what his issue might be.

Bucky’s been keeping in regular contact now, so that can’t be it. Although, he still hasn’t moved into the Tower yet, so there could be some contention, but that doesn’t seem right either.

Steve hasn’t been grumpy or snappish with anyone recently to show he might be annoyed or angry on the inside. He’s also taken to walking up and down the hallway of the labs looking confused and several times she’s noticed him standing outside of Jane’s lab looking like he wants to come in, but he usually ends up shaking his head and walking off again.

He isn’t the only one that’s been acting odd either, recently some of Bucky’s texts have been pretty intense and sometimes all she can do is ignore the message while giving her phone the side-eye.

Bringing the topic up with Natasha had resulted in a five minute stare down before the other woman rolled her eyes and walked away muttering in Romanian (since nothing said in Russian is safe).

The printer beeps to let her know the report has finished and Darcy lets the whole issue trail off as she goes back to work.

What she hasn’t noticed are the wistful, longing looks that Steve has been sending her directly and the many times he’s opened his mouth to say something to her only to close it again.

When the team gets called in for what looks to be a long term mission, she doesn’t forget exactly, but she pushes her concerns to the back of her mind as she takes care of the two remaining scientists.

Bruce is held up as a model since he does in face take breaks to eat and sleep as always, but with Thor gone Jane tends to ignore everything going on and throws herself into Science!

It’s been almost a month when Pepper sends Darcy a text to inform her that the team is inbound. She’s been kept up-to-date by Tony and has in turn been send updates to Darcy, Jane, and Bruce. The mission hadn’t gone well from the start and it seems as if it ended almost as badly.

Darcy immediately abandons her quest for late night snacks and heads back down to the labs. Bruce is headed out with only a few short works, but it takes Darcy ten minutes and practically screaming the word “THOR” to even get Jane to surface from science-land.

Finally the other woman nods.

“Okay I’ll go grab a—” she cuts herself off and Darcy turns to see practically the entire team pouring out of the elevator with Steve in the lead making determined strides down the hall.

Darcy and Jane watch him open-mouthed as he stomps his way into the lab, the door swishing open before him, over to Darcy and suddenly he’s scooping her up into his arms to kiss her like he never did when they were actually dating.

There’s a few stunned seconds before Darcy tentatively kisses him back, wondering if he would have kept going anyway.

The kiss is borderline cliché like he’s a man starving and she’s the only thing that can sate him, but after a few minutes he releases her so she can gasp for air and stare up at him.

Tony leads Sam and Thor into a round of applause.

“Uh… what?”

“Darcy, I’ve been trying to work up the courage for the last week to ask if you’d be willing to open that door back up to me? We’d really like to take you out on a date and I’ve been so worried all week that after our last attempt you’d said no, despite what we talked about.”

“Oh.”

“This mission has made me realize that life is short, even for super-soldiers and if you agree to go out with us I promise you won’t regret it again.”

“Uh… sure? We can do that thing that you’d like.”

She doesn’t remember being this off guard their first go round, but she’s pretty sure Steve wasn’t even remotely invested last time either.

“Great,” he says leaning over to press another kiss to her lips before turning and striding back out of the lab. Sam claps him on the back and follows him towards the elevator.

“What in the hell just happened?” Darcy asks looking around at her friends. Tony has already started to wander in the direction of his lab only to change directions when Jarvis informs him that Pepper’s been waiting.

“I am glad you have decided to give Steven another chance!” Thor pats her gently on the shoulder before he scoops a protesting Jane into her arms and turns to leave the lab with her.

Darcy’s pretty sure she hears him murmur something helping Jane in the shower as they go, leaving her alone with Natasha who’s letting her conflicting emotions show.

“We almost lost Clint and a mini-van full of kids.”

Darcy recoils and gapes at the redhead.

“Jesus fuck, no one told me about that. Are they okay?”

“They are. Sam happened to be their last minute saving grace and Clint is in medical now getting looked at. Only one child sustained injury and it was very mild, the rest went home just fine.”

They spend a few minutes in silence, Darcy leaning up against Natasha for support.

“I’m going to go check on Clint. You know how he is in medical.”

Darcy gives her a short nod.

“I’m going to,” she gestures vaguely. “Clean up here I guess and turn in for the night.”

She gives Natasha a quick hug and turns away to begin the process of shutting the lab down for the night and allow her mind to process everything that’s happened in the last… shit it hasn’t even been an hour.

Darcy sighs tiredly as she finally trudges out of the lab and towards her room. It's not until she's about to collapse onto her bed that she realized amidst Steve's grand romantic declaration that he said we and us. She's pretty sure it wasn't an accident and she wonders who else noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now officially my longest AND most popular fanfiction ever. The other on on FF.net only had 23,000ish words.  
> I'm really happy about that and as always I'm so grateful for the support and love <3


	27. Brunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter folks! Enjoy

Darcy finds Clint in the common area the next morning and gives him a solid punch in the shoulder.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“You almost dying on that mission and making Steve suddenly rethink his life choices. Now I think I have a date with him and Bucky!”

Clint rubs his arm and blinks at her. “Cap swings that way?”

“I have no idea which direction he swings, just that apparently he’s perfectly fine with what might be a polyamorous relationship.”

“Huh, if that isn’t the stuff the pornos are made of then I don’t know what is.”

Darcy’s about to hit him again when Natasha does it for her, smacking him on the back of the head hard enough that he pitches out of his seat.  
“Christ, Natasha! I was joking” Clint whines as he rubs his head and resettles in the chair.

“It was a poor joke.”

“Alright, I’m sorry.”

Natasha glares at him and then turns her focus onto the empty coffee pot. Darcy notices Clint’s mug is full and she sighs as she nudges Nat into a chair and pulls out the French Press.

The things she does to keep the peace around here.

“Miss Lewis, Dr. Foster has entered the labs and begun working.”

“Thanks, Jarvis. How much sleep did she get last night?”

“Dr. Foster and Prince Thor managed six and a half hours before Dr. Foster awoke and headed to the labs. Prince Thor is on his way up for breakfast.”

“Wonderful. Please tell him I haven’t gotten around to making anything yet and he might have to fend for himself while I convince Jane it’s not necessary to work on Saturday’s.”

“I will relay the message. And I have a request from Miss Potts for you to collect Sir from his lab as well and remind him that he’s on schedule to visit children’s hospitals today.”

“Right, tell Pepper I’ll snag him and she can start getting ready.”

“Very Well.”

Darcy sets Natasha’s coffee in front of her, grabs Thor’s Cap’N Crunch, a popcorn bowl, and a half gallon of milk and sets it up for him before she sails out of the room with her own mug of coffee. Jane will get her own coffee when she agrees to leave the lab.

Heading to Tony’s lab first will be easiest and this is on of the few times Darcy can say that. He hates disappointing the kids and he probably just forgot that today was the day. her theory is quickly proven correct and it only takes her fifteen minutes to get him out of the lab and up to the penthouse to change.

She has a different tactic for Jane.

“Dude, I’m pretty sure Steve and Bucky want to take me out and then bone me.”

It takes exactly 74 seconds for Jane to look up from her work and glance over at Darcy.

“Isn’t that what you were hinting at wanting when we were in your vault?”

“Yeah, but now it’s kind of weird. I’m not sure how I feel and I was hoping we could go out to brunch and discuss.”

“Brunch on a weekday?”

“It’s Saturday, Jane.”

Jane looks back at her work for a few minutes before shrugging. “Sure brunch sounds good.”

While she’s waiting for Jane to change into something more presentable, Darcy texts an invite to Natasha and receives a text from Pepper telling them to take the standing reservation she and Tony have at a place a few blocks away. An hour later finds the three women sitting at a secluded table, sipping mimosas and picking at a rather large spread on the table.

Darcy’s surprised Jane managed to wait as long as she has, but when the waiter disappears again, she turns to face her friend with an odd expression on her face.

“So...you’re going to go on a date with Steve and Bucky?”

“Well. Steve asked about a date, but we haven’t set it up yet. I have no idea how this is going to work.”

“Again, weren’t you just saying a few weeks ago that you had a thing for both of them?”

Darcy shrugs and tries to avoid answering by shoving a pastry into her mouth, but neither Jane nor Natasha seem inclined to change the direction of the conversation.

“Yes, but now it’s different.”

“How exactly is it different now?”

Natasha’s smirk makes Darcy want to throw something at her.

“It just is. I don’t know. I guess now it’s real and not just in my head. I mean, how is this going to work out? What happens if someone gets jealous?”

Nat snorts. “I highly doubt you’re going to be jumping into a sexual relationship right away. I’m sure if this is going to happen there is going to be talking involved. Rogers and Barnes must have already done some of the talking.”

“That’s another thing!” Darcy has to work to keep her voice from reaching a shrill pitch. “Where did the whole Steve and Bucky thing come from? Have they always been in a relationship, is it new, are they gay and just making an exception for me to join them?”

Jane and Nat roll their eyes at Darcy’s quickening pattern of speech and Jane looks around quickly before tossing one of the drink napkins at her friend. It hits Darcy on the nose and she finally shuts up.

“Again, this is something you probably have to talk to them about. There’s a lot of discussion that goes into relationships like these, but Natasha and I aren’t going to be in it so we can’t really answer your questions now can we?”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that you used your tarot cards for personal issues too? They help you connect with your inner self or something. Why don’t you do that?”

Jane says and then, “Later, when we’re not eating brunch.” as Darcy starts to reach into her bag.

“Fine. That’s also a good point.”

Having gotten the discussion they wanted... for the most part, Jane and Natasha finally allow a change of subject.

Neither Jane or Darcy notice Natasha pull out her cell phone and send Clint a text instructing him to pay Steve a visit to set up a guys dinner or night out and ensure Barnes is there.

It’s time she pays the both of them a visit and insure they know that starting a relationship with her sister is not something to take lightly. She also tells Clint to set up a weapons arrangement on her bed suitable for the occasion.

The Winter Soldier might have trained her, but James Barnes and Steve Rogers are going to see exactly how terrifying a Black Widow can be when she’s defending something she loves.

After putting her phone away Natasha enjoys the rest of brunch with a surprising amount of enthusiasm although Darcy notices that she's is smiling with too many teeth, her vicious shark smile, but decides against bringing it up.

Honestly, she probably doesn’t want to know what’s going through her little sister’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I think I can finally say that the end of this fic is in sight! There won't be too many more chapters now and I actually just wrote the epilogue. Just need to get from here to there and we'll be done!


	28. The date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...this turned out way more serious than I planned. We've also only got two more chapters to go!! I hope you all enjoy this chapter <3

Darcy stares up at the three floor walk up she’s standing in front of. She’s not in the least bit surprised that Steve and Bucky have a home base in Brooklyn; she is surprised that it’s an apartment instead of a brownstone and she frowns at it thoughtfully. She’s been standing outside for almost ten minutes now and is pretty sure that if she stands here any longer the after work crowd will get suspicious. Earlier in the day she almost couldn’t contain her frantic excitement, but now that she’s here her mind has returned to all the doubts she’s been having about this whole thing.

Sighing she walks up to the door and pushes the bell. After a few seconds the door buzzes and she pulls it open with a snort. Honestly, they didn’t even check to make sure it was her ringing. Granted they probably wouldn’t have to worry if it wasn’t Darcy because well... super soldiers.

Darcy pulls the bag with a bottle of wine closer to her side, desperately wishing she hadn’t let Jane talk her out of bringing her tarot cards. Shuffling them might ease her nerves as she climbs to the top floor.

There’s a door slightly ajar at the end of the hall that she spots immediately after hitting the top of the steps.

Voices pour out of the apartment with the open door and even at this distance she can recognize Steve and Bucky. Taking a deep breath she quickly walks the rest of the way to the door, pastes on a smile, and knocks. After only a few moments Steve pulls the door the rest of the way open, but his smile and greeting die when he sees the grimace on her face that she’s pretending is a smile. When Bucky pokes his head around the wall of the kitchen he looks them both over and frowns.

“Jesus, who died?”

Darcy and Steve both wince and she shakes her head.

“No one. I mean... probably plenty of people, but no one we know.”

There’s an awkward silence before Bucky glares at Steve and pulls his head back into the kitchen.

Looking down Darcy suddenly remembers the wine bottle and she pulls it out, shoving it in Steve’s direction. “I brought this.”

“Oh, thanks. I don’t really know much about wine, is this a good one?”

Darcy shrugs and follows him into the kitchen. “I’m not a wine person either. I drink it, but I don’t know much about it. Nat picked it out.”

She sits in one of the chairs at the small table as he moves to the counter next to Bucky to open the bottle. Bucky finally turns to face her after pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven and studies her for a minute.

“Darce, are you having second thoughts about this date?”

She notices how Steve tenses up and doesn’t turn around to look at her.

“Why would you ask?”

“Well, you look like you’re about to be marched in front of a firing squad.”

“Oh.”

“Is it because of me?”

She’s confused and her eyes flick to Steve, who finally turns around looking a little angry, but it seems like he can’t decide where to direct the emotion.

“What?”

Bucky sighs and pulls out the chair across from her. “Are you tense because of me? Because of who I am?”

Darcy blinks at him, her nerves quickly fading into something like confusion. It must show on her face because he speaks again.

“I’ve killed people.”

Okay. She knew that, she has no idea why he’s bringing it up so she doesn’t say anything, just blinks at him and glances over at Steve wondering if he has an idea of where this is headed.

“Well?” The sudden harshly spoken word jerks her head around again to blink at him again. (She wonders if she looks like an owl.)

“Well what exactly? I mean is that it? You think I don’t want to date you because you killed people?”

“What do you mean is that it? I’m a murderer!” He's practically yelling and Steve lips are turning white from the force he's using keeping them shut.

“I’ve killed more people than you have.”

Whatever else he was going to say is cut short when Darcy utters that short sentence and she tilts her head when the men exchange looks communicating, as most of their group seems to be able to do, in facial ticks and eyebrow movements.

“You think that I was all of a sudden upset that you’ve killed people, despite the fact that I’ve known that this whole time? Besides, why would I care? I’ve been in more wars than you have.”

“What?” Steve chokes on the word and stares at her. Darcy’s nerves have finally faded and are slowly being replace by concern, did they forget she’s immortal?

“Did something happen I don’t know about? Do you guys have amnesia or something?”

“No. It’s just that...I thought you tried to stay in the background of things?”

This is the first time she’s looked at Steve like he might be stupid.

“I mean, I know how you two role. Guts and Glory kinda deal, but it’s really easy to fade in the background during a war. Just be a foot-soldier and don’t do anything stupidly heroic to get noticed.”

Bucky tries to turn his laughter into a cough, but doesn’t quite manage it and Steve glares at him.

“Seriously, the world wasn’t always convinced that women were frail and needed to be protected from you know, everything.”

Bucky finally manages to stop his laughter and look serious again. “So what was with the death march coming in here?”

“I haven’t been in love with anyone in 300 years and the last guy died right before our wedding. Shit’s scary.”

She’s incredibly surprised those words just came out of her mouth, but it’s the truth and they deserve that.

Steve holds his hands up in a time out symbol so he and Bucky can finish with the food, spaghetti and home-made sauce. Darcy gets up and after poking around finds the place settings so she can set the table and pour the wine.

Finally they’re sitting around the table with food and Steve speaks up.

“I have an idea.” He ignores Bucky’s muttered ‘Oh boy’ and focuses on Darcy. “How about we put off the serious talk for now? I know there’s a lot we need to discuss, but why don’t we just put it on the back burner for now and see if we can get through this date and enjoy it?”

Shoving bread into her mouth she thinks about it, then nods.

“Sure.”

“Hey, you wanna hear about that time Nat ganged up on us and gave us a shovel talk?”

Bucky’s grinning at her.

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday!”

She can’t help it, Darcy breaks out into giggles which turn into full force laughter as Bucky recounts the story. His face torn between exasperation and pride until he mentions a knife set he gave Nat long ago. Then, there’s nothing but pride for his little spider.

Steve rolls his eyes and grins when she gets up for a second helping.

Maybe this won’t be as bad as she imagined. Sure they'll have to have serious talks about pretty much everything, but practice makes perfect, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you again for everyone reading this. Sometimes I feel like this story is so disconnected and doesn't read well at all, but you guys always make me feel better about posting. I know it wasn't a traditional story with a huge climax in the middle, but I think it came out okay. Although next time I'll probably plan everything out a little better.


	29. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! We've made it to the final chapter minus the epilogue which will probably be posted later today or tomorrow.  
> It reads kind of like a summary of what happens after with not a lot of dialogue, which I tried to fix several times but this is just how it wanted to be written. Enjoy

They do talk eventually. Darcy brings the boys to the vault so they can take another look around, see her wedding box, and ask questions. Natasha comes with them because she’s nosy and Darcy has trouble telling the other woman no. There’s only a minor incident on the way in.

Bucky is apparently on alert and when he sees two shadows take human shape he throws an arm around Darcy and growls at them.

Seriously.

He growls.

Like an animal.

Darcy can’t decide if she’s turned on or if her feminist sensibilities are offended.

“She’s ours.”

Dean just smirks at him. “You won’t be around forever.” He says as his brother tugs him away.

Natasha prowls around Darcy’s vault for a while, digs through the box Darcy labeled with the years of their time in Russia, before she finally leaves them alone for privacy. The look on her face makes Darcy think that she's going hunting and takes a few minutes to herself to seriously debate if Natasha's going to get one over on the snipers in the warehouse.

The three of them decide to get comfortable on the couch and Steve tells Darcy about how he finally confessed his feelings to Bucky the night before the train and the fall. Darcy concedes that that might actually be the shittiest timing ever. They also tell her that they’ve been trying to figure things out themselves, but they didn't really want to do it without her, which is why they didn't want to wait before asking her out.

There’s a lot more talking.

A lot.

Darcy’s been alive for too long to let her emotions run away with her and she’s not about to start anything with either of them if they can’t be honest. Details for other conversations are brought up and the men make amused faces when Darcy whips out a blank notebook to start writing things down.

“Just because I might last forever doesn’t mean my memory will.” She shrugs. “Besides, it’s good to have things written down, that way there won’t be any confusion about agreements, or wording, or anything like that later on."

The entire discussion is emotionally exhausting and they keep it to a little over an hour. Finally, after giving the men a closer inspection, Darcy calls an end to the night and she tucks the notebook into her bag, next to her tarot cards. She leads them out of the vault again, pausing to hand over a bag of baked goods to Francis, and then out to the car where Natasha is waiting for them.

Darcy stumbles to a stop and peers at her adopted sister.

“You got laid!” She says pointing an accusing finger at the red head, who looks more smug than usual.

Apparently this offends some of Steve’s sensibilities and he spends the ride home throwing Natasha looks and opening his mouth to say something only to snap it shut again.

If he thought Clint was going to take his side, he’s let down when Natasha promptly informs him that she’s going to have an after sex shower and disappears. Clint pauses in his slow, tired consumption of his late breakfast to look after her. After a few sips of coffee he nods then goes back to eating.

“What?” Is the only thing Steve manages to get out and it looks like his face is going to turn an even darker shade of red than it already is.

“Dude, I’m not a young guy anymore. Plus, some of Nat’s kinks are so far out of my comfort zone that I can’t see them with a telescope. If she finds someone willing and durable enough to try them out then good for her.” Clint says as he blinks stupidly at the bottom of his now empty bowl, which Darcy refills with a smile.

“Judge not lest ye be judged. Right fellas?”

Steve stares after her as she sweeps out of the kitchen, but Bucky follows her down to the labs with a grin on his face.

* * *

A month later Darcy manages to trick Tony into talking about Afghanistan, his parents, and his feelings.

When he seems to be totally emotionally wrung out she basically throws Bucky in his direction and says, “The assassin wants to move in with us. Work it out.”

There’s only one explosion and it’s a minor one as Tony works out his feelings.

He’s not ready for Bucky to live in the Tower, but he was planning on sending Steve upstate anyway to supervise the construction of the new compound.

Bucky and Sam go too and Darcy collects her winnings from the ‘Tony’s going to try and Kill Barnes’ betting pot.

* * *

Three months after that the rest of the team move to upstate New York Darcy moves her stuff into the rooms Steve and Bucky have established.

After, of course, putting Thor and Jane in their own wing for now because she’s not sure if the soundproofing quality is the same as what’s in Stark Tower and she doesn’t really want to risk it. Darcy continues being the team mom and when she’s sitting alone one night absently shuffling her worn tarot deck, the team out on a mission, she wonders how this is her life.

Then, she takes a moment to remember as much as she can and is thankful that this is her life and she’s with these people that she loves. If the other members of her family notice her eyes when they return they don’t mention it; her eyes that are glittering with a thousand lifetimes worth of pride, joy, and love.

That night at dinner when she tells her men that she loves them, Steve chokes on his drink in his effort to swallow quickly and blurt the words back to her. Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve as he tugs her closer for a kiss.

“Love you too, Doll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you'd like the epilogue posted today or tomorrow in the comments! It's actually been written and waiting to go for a while and I actually like it as an ending more than this chapter which was difficult and gave me trouble all week. It just did not want to be written, but I managed!  
> Thanks for reading :)


	30. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have come at last to the very end! Please note I posted two chapters today (June 22nd) so if you haven't read chapter 29 before reading this I'd suggest going back to it!  
> Please enjoy this ending <3

Three Years Later

* * *

Darcy sits in her office in the new Avengers facility in upstate New York drinking her coffee and wondering (again) how her life ended up the way it did. How did she end up going from someone who was content to live their (long) life in the background and shadows of the world to someone who is not only dating two Avengers, but also managing the entire team along with handling their PR?

The knock on her door is unexpected at this early hour.

“Come in.”

It doesn’t take her more than a few seconds to place the ethereal Asian woman who walks through her door in a smart pantsuit.

“Aphrodite, it’s been a while. Please have a seat.”

“Thank-you, Darcy.”

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

The Goddess waves the offer away and directs a brilliant smile at Darcy.

“I’ve come because it seems that we need to amend your contract.”

Darcy’s eyebrows raise. “I’m not sure what you mean. You’d like me to start earlier?”

Aphrodite laughs and it’s a sound that Darcy has never forgotten, but the memory is much duller than the actual sound.

“No, nothing of the sort. I would like to include the addition of your consorts into your future life.”

“Uh, you mean Steve and Bucky?”

“Yes child. I know they have been thinking again about their long lives and they often worry about what is to come. I could ease their worries."

Darcy’s thoughts are racing and she has a million questions, but what comes out is, “I don’t really feel comfortable making the decision without them”.

“Of course.”

Aphrodite waves her hand and the empty corner of the office fills with two super soldiers who were obviously in the gym minutes before.

“Uh. Hey guys.”

“Darcy what’s going on here?” Steve asks from his position behind Bucky, who obviously isn't taking their sudden magical transportation too well. He's got one arm around Steve to keep him back and the other's pointing a knife at a Goddess.

“Guys. I’d like you to meet Aphrodite.”

“The Goddess?”

“Indeed. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

“Seriously, James it’s okay she won’t hurt you.”

It takes several more slow seconds for Bucky to straighten and put away his knife.

“Why’re we here?”

“I had a proposal for an amendment to Darcy’s contract and she felt it would be best if you both were here.”

They don't really talk about Darcy’s immortality or her contract much, so both men go slightly stiff at the mention. Darcy sighs and thinks of all the ways this meeting could have gone better. Steve, at one point had expressed a hope of eventually meeting Aphrodite, but now he's on guard instead of relaxed.

“I had hoped to include the additions of Darcy’s consorts to her contract.”

Two carefully blank faces turn to face their girlfriend.

“Aphrodite wants you guys to come with me when I decide to work for her.” Blunt and straight to the point should work.

“Doll, it’s not that we don’t really appreciate the offer, but...well we’re not sure the serum would last us that long.” It’s the first thing Bucky says and it makes Darcy’s heart stall.

They have a point...until Aphrodite laughs again.

“Ah, you would not need to rely on the science of man. I would give you both some of the apple.”

Darcy’s eyebrows shoot back up. “Odin gave you permission for that?”

“Child, Idunn is not the only one who has a golden apple.”

“Oh, I remember. Paris of Troy gave you the apple that was to be given to the most beautiful Goddess didn’t he?”

The smile that Aphrodite bestows upon Steve at that second reminds him of Pepper or Natasha when they knew they're playing a game only they know the rules too and he shivers.

“Yes, I would offer to you both a piece of my apple so that you may stay with your Lady Darcy when she chooses to leave this world.”

Darcy watches the faces of her loves as they think the offer over. Thor had made Jane a similar offer when he’d proposed to her last year. After all the future Queen of Asgard would need to live a good long time. She briefly thinks about Natasha, but her sister would not want to leave Clint or outlive him by much either and Darcy has serious doubts that the entire Avengers group would be offered immortality to curb any future nostalgia on her part.

She's broken from her musings when Bucky spoke up again.

“What would Steve and I be expected to do in return for this apple?”

Aphrodite’s smile turns from shark-like to something embodying the very essence of joy. It's slightly blinding.

“Nothing at all. There will come a time when you two will wish to put down the shield and rest, that is what I shall give you. Darcy will have her work and if either of you wish to be of use in Olympus, I’m sure something will be found, but you will never be under an obligation to do it.”

James Buchanan Barnes had had his life taken from him when he was drafted and it had taken seventy years for the universe to give it back to him. Choices included. He’d never made one so fast.

“I’m in.” He says, smacking Steve on the back and shooting Darcy a grin. “Ma’am.”

Steve expels the breath he’d been holding and nods slowly.

“Of course, I couldn’t leave either of you two alone without supervision anywhere.”

Bucky smirks winningly at him and Steve snorts.

“Excellent!” She claps her hands together and is gone in a blink of an eye, leaving the trio alone to absorb the morning.

That night they have a celebration dinner with Thor and Jane, opting to keep this new development just between the five of them and as she sits in between Steve and Bucky Darcy wonders how exactly this became her life.

Not that she would trade it for anything in the world, because now she won’t have to outlive the two men she loves most in the world.

(Or me. Yes or you Jane.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of this ride my friends. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have and I want to once more say thank-you for all your kind comments and kudos! There probably won't be any additions to this universe, but never say never. If I think of anything to add it might be placed here or as a one shot in the Chronicles of Darcy Lewis.


End file.
